Contributions Toward A History Of Arabico - Gothic Culture Volume I

11 1 065

FRITZ TOBIAS

With an Introduction by A. J. P. TAYLOR

G. P. Putnam's Sons

NEW YORK

Translated from the German
by Arnold J. Pomerans

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION 1964

English translation <& 1963

by Martin Seeker & Warburg Limited

First published in Germany under the title Der Reichstagsbrand f
> 1962 by G. Grote'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof,
must not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Published simultaneously in the Dominion of Canada
by Longmans Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Catalog
Card Number: 64-10128

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents

Introduction by A. J. P. Taylor 9
Author's Preface to the ifagliyTi Edition 17

L THE CRIMINAL CASE

1. A Case of Arson 21

2. The Arsonist 31

3. The Police Investigation 59

4. Wallot's Building 73

IL THE POLITICAL CASE

5. Brown versus Red 81

6. Counter-Attack 98

7. The Oberfohren Memorandum 104

8. The London Counter-trial 117

9. Miinzenberg's Striking Success 133

DDL THE TRIAL

10. The Preliminary Examination 179

11. The German Court and its Shadow 205

12. The Experts 254

13. The Verdict 268

APPENDIX A: The Reichstag Fire- Who was Guilty?' 285
APPENDIX B: c The Reichstag Fire - Nazis Guilty?* 289
APPENDIX c: The Oberfohren Memorandum 293
APPENDIX D: The Ernst Confession 313
Sources Consulted 323
References 331
Index 339

Illustrations

Between pages 221-223

1. The Burning Reichstag.

2. The Nazi Leaders at the scene of the fire.

3 . The Burnt-out Sessions Chamber.

4. Marius van der Lubbe before the fire.

5. Dimitrov, Popov and Tanev.

6. Van der Lubbe giving evidence.

7. Goring giving evidence.

8. Van der Lubbe and Torgler in court.

DIAGRAMS
Between pages 46-47

1. Session Cham.berat9.2i p.m* according to LateitandLosigkeit.

2. Session Chamber at 9.23 p.m. according to Scranowitz.

3 . Van der Lubbe's trail through the Reichstag (main floor) .

4. Ground plan and section of subterranean passage joining
boiler house to Reichstag.

The author gratefully acknowledges the help of:

the Wiener Library, London;

the International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam;

the Federal Archives, Koblenz;

the Federal Information Office, Bonn;

the State Office for Political Education, Hannover;

Chief Police Inspector J. C. Hofstede, Leyden;

Herr Ernst Tbrgler, Hannover;

Herr Gustav Schmidt-Kuester, Hannover;

Herr Karl-Heinz Dobbert, Berlin;

and many others.

The extracts quoted from The Invisible Writing are reprinted
by kind permission of Mr. Arthur Koestler and The Mac-
millan Co.

The extracts quoted from The God That Failed (edited by
Richard Grossman) are reprinted by kind permission of Mr.
Arthur Koestler and Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.

Introduction by A. J. P. Taylor

THE fire in the Debating Chamber of the Reichstag on2j February
1933 has a place, in all the history books. Historians, who find so
much to disagree about, are for once in agreement, or were until
the present book was published. National Socialists - Nazis for
short - started the fire, we believed, in order to cause an anti-
Communist panic in. Germany and so to influence the general
election, due on 5 March, lite trick succeeded. The German
electors took alarm. The Nazis got their majority, and Hider was
able to establish his dictatorship. The Reichstag fire not only
explained the initial Nazi success. It also set the pattern for explana-
tions of all Hitler 's later acts. We saw at every stage - over rearma-
ment, over Austria, over Czechoslovakia, over Poland - the same
deliberate and conspiratorial cunning which had been first shown
on 27 February 1933. Historians, writing about Nazi Germany,
did not look closely at the events of that night. They took the
central fact for granted: Nazis set fire to the Reichstag, and there
was an end of it. Most historians were less sure how the Nazis did
it. They used some equivocal phrase: 'we do not know exactly
what happened* ; *the details are still to be revealed 9 - something
of that sort. Much evidence was in fact available: police reports,
fire inspectors' reports, large excerpts from the proceedings of the
High Court at Leipzig, kept by Dr Sack, Torgler's counsel. Herr
Tobias was the first to look at this evidence with an impartial eye.
He took nothing for granted. He was not concerned to indict the
Nazis, or for that matter to acquit them. He was that rare thing, a
researcher for truth, out to find what happened.

His book sticks closely to the events or 27 February and to the
legal or sham-legal proceedings which followed. Some knowledge
of the political background may be useful. The republican con-
stitution, created at Weimar in 1919, gave Germany an electoral
system of proportional representation. No single party ever
obtained an absolute majority in the Reichstag. A series of coali-
tions governed Germany between 1919 and 1930. Coalition broke
down under the impact of the world depression. The Social

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Democrats refused to carry through deflation; their former asso-
ciates insisted on it. Briining, a member of the Centre (Roman
Catholic) Party, became Chancellor and imposed deflation by
emergency decrees, without possessing a majority in the Reich-
stag. Discontent mounted. Nazis and Communists fought in the
streets. In May 1932 Briining proposed to dissolve the private
armies of these two parties by emergency decree. The elderly Field-
Marshal Hindenburg, President since 1925, refused. He feared that
conflict with the private armies would bring the real army into
politics; and this he was determined to avoid. Briining was dis-
missed. Papen, another member of the Centre, became Chancellor.
He, too, relied on emergency decrees. He dissolved the Reichstag
in die hope of winning wider support. His hope was not fulfilled.
The Nazis won 37.3 per cent of the votes cast on 31 July - their
highest vote in a free election - and 230 seats in the Reichstag.
Papen tried to tempt Hitler with an offer of subordinate office.
Hitler refused. Papen dissolved the Reichstag again. This time the
Nazis did not do so well. On 6 November they received only 33
per cent of the vote and 196 seats. Once more Hitler was offered
office. Once more he refused. Papen now proposed to prorogue
the Reichstag and to govern solely by Presidential decree. The
army leaders declared that they would be unable to maintain order.
Papen resigned. Schleidher, Hindenburg's military adviser, took
his place.

Schleicher tried to strengthen his government by negotiating
with trade union officials and with a few Nazis who had lost faith in
Hitler. The negotiations came to nothing. On 28 January 1933 he
confessed to Hindenburg that he, too, would have to rule by
emergency decree. Meanwhile Papen, still intimate with Hinden-
burg though out of office, had been negotiating more successfully
with Hitler. Hitler agreed to join a coalition government of
National Socialists and Nationalists. On 30 January he became
Chancellor. This was not a seizure of power. Hitler was intrigued
into power by respectable politicians of the old order - principally
by Papen and also by more obscure advisers round Hindenburg.
Papen had, he thought, taken Hitler prisoner. There were only
three Nazis in a cabinet of eleven ; the key posts of foreign minister
and minister of defence were in the hands of non-political experts,
loyal to Hindenburg; and Hitler was not to visit Hindenburg
except in the company of Papen, the Vice-Chancellor. Nazis and

10

INTRODUCTION

Nationalists together did not have a majority. Hitler urged that yet
another general election would give them a majority, and thus
relieve Hindenburg from the embarrassment of issuin

decrees any longer. The constitutional system would be restor
This, after all, had been the object of malong Hitler Chancellor.

Once more the Reichstag was dissolved. The Nazis now reaped
the advantage of being in die government. Goring, Hitler's chief
assistant, became head of the Prussian police; and the police
naturally hesitated to act firmly against the Nazi ruffians in their
brown shirts. Violence became one-sided. Communist and Social
Democrat meetings were broken up. The Nazis made much of the
Communist danger as an election cry. They alleged that the
Communists were planning an armed rising. On 23 February the
police, on Goring's orders, raided Communist headquarters in
order to discover evidence of this plan. They found none. On 27
February the Reichstag 'went up in flames. Here, it seemed, was the
decisive evidence against the Communists, provided perhaps by
Heaven. Hitler announced the existence of a revolutionary con-
spiracy. Emergency decrees were passed, authorizing the arrest of
dangerous politicians. Communists and others were sent to labour
camps. As a matter of fact, the fire had singularly little effect on the
general election of 5 March. The Social Democrats and Centre held
their previous vote practically intact. The Communists had 70
deputies instead of 100. The National Socialist vote increased to
43.9 per cent. Even with the Nationalists, who also increased their
vote a little, Hitler had only a bare majority in the Reichstag.

This was not enough for him. Hider wished to carry an Enabling
Law which would empower Mm to govern by decrees and thus
make Him a dictator by constitutional process. This Law needed a
two-thirds majority in the Reichstag. The Communists were pre-
vented from attending. The Social Democrats attended, and were
solid against the Enabling Law. Decisionrested with the 102 deputies
of the Centre. They were lured by promises of security for Roman
Catholic schools, and voted for the Law. Hitler obtained his two-
thirds majority. He soon pushed aside the restrictions which. Papen
had tried to place upon Him- He dislodged, or discredited, the
Nationalist ministers; banned all parties in Germany except the
National Socialist; and gradually engrossed all power in his own
hands. The consequences for Germany and the world are known to
us all.

ii

INTRODUCTION

On a cool retrospect, the burning of the Reichstag occupies a
comparatively small place in the story of Hitler's rise to absolute
power. He was Chancellor before the fire occurred ; it did not much
affect the electors ; and they did not give him the crushing majority
which he needed. The passing of the Enabling Law, not the general
election, was the moment of decision. But these were not cool days.
A democratic system was being destroyed in the full glare of
publicity. Berlin was thronged with newspaper correspondents
nrom foreign countries, eager for stories. With nerves on edge,
everyone expected conspiracies by everyone else. The fire at die
Reichstag supplied the most dramatic story of a dramatic time. It
was naturally built up beyond its merits. For instance, we talk to
this day as though the entire Reichstag, a great complex of rooms
and building, was destroyed. In fact, only the Debating Chamber
was burnt out; and the burning of a Chamber, with wooden
panels, curtains dry with age, and a glass dome to provide a natural
draught, was not surprising. Many other similar halls have burnt in
an equally short space of time, from the old House of Commons in
1834 to die Vienna Stock Exchange a few years ago. A prosaic
explanation of this kind did not suit the spirit of the time. People
wanted drama ; and there had to be drama.

There was, on the surface, no great mystery about the burning of
die Reichstag. An incendiary was discovered: van der Lubbe, a
young Dutchman. He gave a coherent account of his activities.
This account made sense both to die police officers who examined
him and to the fire chiefs who handled the fire. It did not suit either
die Nazis or their opponents that van der Lubbc should have
started the fire alone. Hider declared, from the first moment, that
the Communists had set fire to the Reichstag. They, knowing that
they had not, returned the compliment and condemned the fire as a
Nazi trick. Thus both sides, far from wanting to find the truth
about the fire, set out on a search for van der Lubbe's accomplices.
The German authorities arrested Torgler, leader of die Com-
munists in the Reichstag, and three Bulgarian Communists. One of
diem, Dimitrov, was chief European representative of die Com-
munist International, though die Germans did not know this. The
four men were accused, along widi van der Lubbe, before the High
Court at Leipzig. The prosecution was not interested in establishing
the guilt of van der Lubbe. This was both self-evident and un-
important. The prosecution was after the four Communists. It was

12

INTRODUCTION

essential to demonstrate that van der Lubbe could not have acted
alone. Most of the evidence was directed to this point. It convinced
the Court, and has continued to convince most of those -who
examined the case later. Van der Lubbe, everyone decided, had
accomplices. The prosecution, however, failed to establish that the
accomplices were the four menin the dock. Allfour were acquitted.
Van der Lubbe was convicted, and executed by virtue of a special
law, made retrospective for his case. His capital crime was not to
have set fire to the Reichstag, but to have had accomplices in doing
so.

The opponents of the Nazis outside Germany were quick to
point the moral. Everyone now agreed that van der Lubbe had
accomplices. The accomplices had not been found, despite all the
labours of the German criminal police and the German High Court.
From this it clearly seemed to follow that the accomplices were not
being sought in the right place. They were, in fact, the Nazis them-
selves. Here was a splendid opportunity for anti-Nazi propaganda.
Communist exiles used it to the full. They organized a counter-
trial in London, and provided evidence for it as lavishly as Stalin
did for the great 'purge' trials in Russia later. Many of those -who
manufactured the evidence did so in good faith. They argued that
the Nazis were immeasurably wicked (which they were) and that
they had set fire to the Reichstag. They must have done it in a
certain way; and the evidence before the counter-trial, though
actually conjecture not fact, merely showed what this way was. In
those days many of us were passionately anti-Nazi, and were ready
to believe any evil of them. We had, as yet, little experience ofhow
the Communists manufactured evidence when it suited their
purpose. Men of good will accepted the verdict of the counter-
trial; and though they were later disillusioned by the 'purges', by
the post-war trials in eastern Europe, or by the Hungarian rising in
1956, some are reluctant to admit that they were taken for a ride by
the Commnriists as early as 1933.^

the counter-trial has now been discredited. Everyone, for instance,
now recognizes the Oberfohren Memorandum and the confession
of Karl Ernst, both discussed in detail by Herr Tobias, as Com-
munist forgeries. The central arg^^

Lubbe could not have set fire tb the Reichstag alone. Yet the proof
of this rests mainly on the evidence placed before the Leipzig High
Court. The Nazis unwittingly convicted themselves; and anyone

13

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

who believes in their guilt is relying on evidence which the Nazis
provided - or manufactured.

Such is the background for this book. Herr Tobias has not pro-
duced new evidence. He has merely looked again at the evidence
which always existed. His examination involves much detail. This
is essential if we are to judge what the evidence is worth. He has had
to follow many false trails, and it is exasperating when these lead to
a dead end. In the original German edition, he ran after still more
false trails. Some of these have been left out, in order to spare the
English reader. They do not, in my judgement, affect the general
picture. I do not know Herr Tobias. He was never a Nazi; nor was
his book written to please the present authorities in Germany - very
much the contrary. It was written in an endeavour, whether mis-
taken or not, to discover the truth. In my opinion, he has succeeded,
so far as anyone can succeed with the evidence we have at present.
The reader will, I hope, believe me when I say that I have no desire
to 'acquit* the Nazis. I welcome the investigations by Herr Tobias,
solely because their conclusions seem to me right.

The case against the Nazis rested on two arguments or rather
assumptions : the first that van der Lubbe was a physical degenerate
who was incapable of starting the fires alone; the second that it was
impossible, in any case, for the fires to ha ve been started by a single
man. Herr Tobias has shaken both these assumptions. He shows
that van der Lubbe was quick-witted, ingenious, and physically
active. His defective eyesight was balanced, as often happens, by
sensitivity in other ways. He described precisely how he had set
fire to the Reichstag ; and his description tallied with the evidence.
The police took him through the Reichstag with a stop-watch. He
covered the ground at exactly the right times. Herr Tobias also
provides a convincing explanation of van der Lubbe's motives and
of his later behaviour. Van der Lubbe despaired at the lack of fight
shown by the Communists and other opponents of Hitler. He
wished to give a signal of revolt. When his gesture failed, when
indeed it helped to consolidate Hitler's dictatorship, he fell into
despair. There is a cry ofhnman tragedy in his repeated declaration
to the High Court: *I did it alone. I was there. I know.' No one
believed nj]-n r

Herr Tobias shows too that the fires were not beyond the
capacity of a single man. The opinion of the 'experts' against this
rested on conjecture, not evidence. Thus, there is good ground fox

14

INTRODUCTION

believing that van der Lubbe did it all alone, exactly as he claimed.
We can go further. There is some evidence, though naturally more
conjectural, that the Nazis did not do it. If they in feet started the
fire, why did they so strikingly fail to provide any evidence against
the Communists or even that van der Lubbe had accomplices? The
Nazi leaders certainly behaved as though they were surprised
when they arrived at the scene of the fire. Indeed everyone
acknowledges that Hitler hadno previous knowledge of the fire, and
was genuinely surprised. Yet it was his spontaneous reaction in
accusing the Communists which gave the Reichstag fire political
significance so far as it had any. Hence even the believers in Nazi
guilt must admit that Hitler's method was to grab at opportunities
as they occurred, not to manufacture them beforehand. Again,
there has been total failure to show how the Nazis were associated
with the fire. The strongest point in Herr Tobias's book is perhaps
the firm and final demonstration that neither the Nazis nor anyone
else could have come through the famous 'tunnel' from Goring's
house. Use of this tunnel by the Nazis was an ingenious Com-
munist speculation, plausible only to those who knew nothing of
the physical obstacles which the tunnel and its many locked doors
provided. We are thus left with two conclusions. Tnere is no firm
evidence that the Nazis had anything to do with the fire. There is
much evidence that van der Lubbe did it alone, as he claimed. Of
course new evidence may turn up, though this is unlikely after
thirty years. The full records of the proceedings before the High
Court are locked away at Potsdam under Communist control.
They would surely have been released before now if they had
helped to convict die Nazis. I have an uneasy feeling that van der
Lubbe talked about his intentions beforehand and that he may have
been egged on by Nazi companions. This does not imply that the
Nazi leaders knew anything of it, and it makes no difference to the
story.

Should this book have been written and published at all? Many
people have been indignant at any so-called attempt to 'acquit* the
Nazis of any charge, true or false. It is easy to understand whypeoplc
have been indignant in Germany. Nazi guilt means innocence for
everyone else. In particular, present German Ministers, who, as
members of the Centre, voted for the Enabling Law in 1933. can
plead that they were cheated by Hitler into believing in a Com-
munist danger. But why should people mind in England? They are

15

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

reluctant, I suppose, to confess that they were taken in the other way
round - by the Communists, not by Hitler. Writers and lecturers on
German history are annoyed at having to change their texts or
their lecture-notes. I do not sympathize with them. As a scholar, I
am just as pleased at being proved wrong as at being proved right.
The essential thing is to acknowledge one's mistakes. On the
Reichstag fire I was as wrong as everyone else; and I am. grateful to
Herr Tobias for putting me right. The Nazi (and Communist)
method is to stick to every charge against one's opponents, whether
it be true or false. We sink to their level if we copy their methods.
Every act of fair judgement against the Nazis - every 'acquittal' of
them if you like - is a triumph for the free spirit. Herr Tobias has
performed a great service for all those who believe in truly free
inquiry.

An essay by Sir Lewis Namier on Open Diplomacy opens with
the words : 'There would be little to say on this subject, were it not
for the nonsense which has been talked about it/ This is true of
many topics besides Open Diplomacy. It is true of the fire at the
Reichstag. Taken by itself^ merely as a fire, there is little to say
about it. An unbalanced Dutch boy started the fire all alone, much
as MartJi set fire to York Minster in 1829. Martin wanted to stop
the organ buzzing. Van der Lubbe wanted to give the signal for a
rising against the Nazis. Both were disappointed. The organ of
York Minster still plays. Not a single German responded to van
der Lubbe's calL But then everyone talked nonsense. The Nazis
accused the Communists of starting the fire. Communists and
others accused the Nazis. The nonsense talked about the fire illu-
minates, perhaps better than anything else, the political climate of
the nineteen-thirties. It illuminates Nazi methods and Nazi incom-
petence. It illuminates Communist methods and, by comparison
at any rate, their competence - particularly their competence in
manufecturing legends which deceived high-minded people all
oxer the world. It was their best stroke since the affair of Sacco and
Vanzetti, where, it now appears, Sacco, though probably not
Vanzetti, was guilty after alt The legends about the Reichstag fire
became a cardinal part of recent history. Like all legends, they
should be demolished; and Herr Tobias has gone a long way
towards demolishing them,

JMAGDALEN COLLEGE
OXFORD

16

Author's Preface

LIKE so many evils, this book had its root in 1933, when, as a direct
result of the Reichstag fire, I lost my job and my home. Born in
1912, the son of a ceramic artist who later became a Trade Union
official, I was working as a bookseller in a shop in the Trade Union
buildings in Hamburg by 1933. On the morning o f I April 1933,
Nazi thugs battered their way in, and when all the shooting
and shouting was over, my father and I were jobless and home-
less.

The fire trial, which I followed from a distance while j
to find a new job, ended with a large question-mark. '. _

seemed to show that Germany's new rulers had perpetrated a
gigantic swindle. A government, I argued, that had promised to
base its policies on honesty, decency and truth, and yet began with
what appeared so transparent a deception, deserved neither
credence nor respect.

When the end of the war found me in an Italian hospital, where
skilful American surgeons patched me up and pumped me full of
fresh blood, I learned from American papers of many other Nazi
scandals and hoped that the real truth of the Reichstag fire would
soon come to light.

For years I waited in vain, and when Rudolf Diels, the first chief
of the all-knowing Gestapo, had to confess in his book Lucifer ante
portas that he too considered the fire as mysterious as before, and
when even the Nuremberg Trials produced no fresh evidence (only
legends obviously designed to curry favour with the Occupation
Authorities) I rashly resolved to try to -find out for mysel

In 1946 I was made an honorary member of the Hanover
Denazification Court, and soon afterwards I was asked to join the
State Denazification Commission. Then, in 1953, I became a
permanent member of the State Civil Service and began to have
enough leisure to carry out my resolution and began the studies of
which this book is the result.

As I pursued what at first were completely unsystematic
attempts to get at the facts, a new picture began to emerge, first in

I?

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

outline and then in ever-greater detail. It differed radically from
any that had been drawn before.

In the glimmer of 1956 I was approached by a member of the
Federal Information Office who had heard by chance that I had
been steadily amassing fresh evidence on the Reichstag fire, and
who implored me not to keep my findings to myselfT At first I
refused to publish anything, partly because of laziness and partly
because I knew what I should be letting myself in for. But in the end
his persistence prevailed and I agreed to the publication of some
extracts from this book in Der Spiegel.

I was not surprised when they were greeted with howls of rage,
for in the course of my researches I had learned how tenaciously
most people guard their familiar opinions. Many of those who
attacked me in the correspondence columns of Der Spiegel and Die
Ze.it revealed that they are not nearly as interested in the truth as in
preventing the acceptance of any facts that could possibly be
interpreted as whitewashing the Nazis. In what follows I shall try
to show that their fears are unjustified and that, as Kurt Stechert has
put it, 'a democratic politician must declare war on all lies, for the
humanitarian cause can only be advanced by the truth.'

Naturally, after all these years, including a total war and its
aftermath, the picture I have been able to draw is somewhat blurred
in places. On die other hand, I have managed to amass so large a
volume of material that I have had to omit a great deal from a book
addressed not only to the professional historian but also to the
general reader. I must ask both to forgive me, and also to overlook
my occasional inability to discuss sheer stupidity with the requisite
scientific detachment.

p. T.

18

I

THE CRIMINAL CASE

i. A Case of Arson

SHORTLY before 10 p.m. on 27 February 1933, the telephone rang
in Division IA, Police Headquarters, Berlin. When Detective-
Inspector Heisig answered it, he was greeted by the voice of an
extremely agitated Dr Schneider:

*Is that you, Heisig? Listen carefully, the Reichstag is on fire. The
whole thing is a Communist job, because weVe caught a Dutch
Communist in the act. Goring has put the entire Prussian police on
the alert, and I have just broadcast his orders over the Karlshorst
police transmitter. Will you tell everyone in IA to get down to
Headquarters as quickly as they can? The chief [Rudolf Diels] is
bringing the criminal, and I want you to take a statement as soon as
he arrives/

Inspector Helmut Heisig had just turned thirty-one. Five years
earlier, he had abandoned his theological studies to become a
detective, first in Breslau, and later in Berlin. In the beginning, he
had been assigned to criminal cases, but as the political tension
mounted, he was increasingly drawn into the fight against Com-
munist and National Socialist extremists. So impressed was Police
President Albert GrzesinsH with the work of his new inspector
that he entrusted him with a number of extremely delicate and
difficult political missions.

Heisig continued to do his duty by the Weimar Republic long
after he realized that German democracy was doomed, that all the
careerists in the force had long ago joined Nazi cells, and that they
were now preparing black lists of unreliable dements*.

In fact, Heisig figured prominently on one such list, for in 1932
he had closed an election meeting of Captain Hermann Goring, the
very man who, as Prussian Minister of die Interior, had meanwhile
become his chief, and who was to complain to the Supreme Court
on 4 November 1933 : *I was handed the Prussian Ministry of the
Interior as a political instrument. . . .But the instrument turned out
to be completely useless. What good were policemen who lived in
the past, who had but yesterday beaten up our men . . .?' x

A typical opportunist, on the other hand, was the police officer

21

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

who, on the historic 27 February 1933, attended a crowded Social
Democratic election meeting in the Sportpalast. When the chief
speaker, the editor of the Vonvarts, Friedrich Stampfer, explained
the main difference between a Marxist and an anti-Marxist- While
the former has to have a vast store of knowledge, the latter needs no
knowledge at all* - the police officer leapt on to the platform and
declared the meeting closed. The crowd was so incensed at this
arbitrary intervention that the ushers had great difficulty in pro-
tecting the officer. There were shouts of: 'Down with Hitler', and :
'String him up'. 2

The police had significantly counted on the sudden interruption
of the meeting, and had accordingly placed the 32nd Precinct
(Brandenburg Gate) on the alert. But when the door of the police
station finally flew open, in came not the expected constable with
an urgent request for reinforcement against the outraged demon-
strators in the Sportpalast, but a panting young man in a brown
raincoat.

'Come at once, the Reichstag is on fire !' he shouted.

And the duty officer, Lieutenant Emil Lateit, lost no time;
together with Constables Graening and Losigkeit and the breathless
young man, he jumped into the squad car whose engine had been
kept running for quite a different purpose. The time was 9.15 p.m
precisely.

Everything had happened so quickly that no one had found time
to ask die young man for his name, let alone a signed statement.
Back at the Reichstag, he kept standing about the street for a while
and was then pushed back with the rest of the huge crowd which
had meanwhile assembled. He went home, presumably satisfied
that he had done his duty.

The squad car took no more than two minutes to reach the
Reichstag building. When Lateit, whom the young man directed
to the West Wing, observed a glow to the right of the main
staircase, he hastily scribbled a note: '9.17 p.m. Reichstag blazing.
Reinforcements needed', and sent Constable Graening back to
the station. Graening returned a few minutes later with a large
contingent of policemen who immediately cordoned off the
area.

The Reichstag itself was quite deserted on this dull and wintry
day - the temperature was 22 degrees F. and there was a sharp

22

THE CRIMINAL CASE

easterly wind. The last deputy to leave the building had been the
chairman of the Communist parliamentary group, Ernst Torgler,
who had passed through Ported Five (Northern Entrance) accom-
panied by the Communist deputy, Koenen, and the group
secretary, Anna Rehme. Their late departure was not in the least
unusual, for not only was Torgler a member of many Reichstag
Committees, but his Reichstag rooms had become the Berlin
Communist headquarters ever since the closure of the Karl
Liebknecht House. The Reichstag was, in feet, the Communists'
last legal refuge, for here alone did their leaders enjoy any kind of
immunity. As Torgler passed through Portal Five he handed his
keys to the night watchman, Rudolf Scholz. Scholz, who had
known the affable and popular Torgler for many years, exchanged
a few pleasantries with him before Torgler and his comp

i few pleasantries with nim before Torgler and his companions J
the House.

Just under half an hour earlier, at 8.10 p.m. to be precise, Scholz
had started on his customary round of inspection. It was his job to
turn off any lights that had been left on and to dose any open doors
and windows. At about 8.30 P.m. he had passed the Session
Chamber, and a quick look had showed V"'m that everything was in
order. Then he had heard footsteps in the dark, had switched on a
light, but had continued on his round when he found that it was
only Fraulein Anna Rehme on her way to the Communist Party
rooms, where - as she explained - she wanted to pick up election
material for Koenen. Scholz finished his rounds at about 8.3 8 p.rru,
just in time to take possession of Torgler's keys.

A few minutes later- at 8.45 p.m. - the Reichstag postman, Willi

Viim that all the deputies had left. As was his custom, Otto lit his
lantern and went up the main staircase leading to Portal Two
(south), and to the Reichstag Post Office, where he emptied the
post-boxes. Otto, too, neither heard nor noticed anything
suspicious in the deserted building. Ten minutes later, at about 8.55
p.m., he left the Reichstag again through Portal Five, the only
entrance still open.

At about 9.03 p.m., Hans Hoter, a young theology student, was
malciTig his way home from the State Library. As he turned the
south-western corner of the dark and deserted Reichstag and
headed across the square in front of the main entrance, he heard the
sound of breaking glass. When he spun round to look in the

23

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

direction of the noise, he saw a man with a burning object in his
hand on the first-floor balcony outside a window to the right of the
Main Portal. Floter wasted no time but sprinted off to the north-
western corner of the building where he knew he would find a
police officer. The officer (Sergeant Karl Buwert) seemed unable to
take in what Floter was trying to tell him, so that FlSter, in his
excitement, felt impelled to give him a thump in the back to
emphasize his words. Then the policeman trotted off in the correct
direction and FlSter - 'who was no friend of the new government -
continued on his way home. As he later put it, he had pressed the
button and had started the machine but was not at all concerned to
watch it run its course. However, before he walked off, he looked
at his watch. It was 9.05 p.nou

When Police-Sergeant Buwert reached the front of the building,
he at once noticed a broken window and a red glow behind it, He
thought that Floter was still with him, when in fact he had been
joined by someone else. The two men gaped speechlessly at the
weird spectacle behind the Reichstag windows.

Then a third passer-by appeared on the scene. He was twenty-
one-year-old Werner Thaler, a typesetter, who had rounded the
south-western corner of the Reichstag on his way to the Lehrter
Bahnho He had previously heard the noise of breaking glass, had
jumped up on the balustrade in the centre of the carriageway, and
had gained the impression that two persons, and not one, were
trying to break in. (It appeared later that this might have been an
optical illusion, caused by reflection.) Remembering that he had
passed a policeman a short way back, he raced off in the direction of
Portal Two (Southern Entrance) and shouted into the night:
'Quick. Someone's trying to break into the Reichstag/ Then he
ran back to the carriageway where he found Buwert and his
unknown companion. Thaler's wrist-watch, which was usually
fast, read 9.10 p.m.

For a moment all three of them looked on in paralysed astonish-
ment. Then, as the man inside could be seen rushing from window
to window waving a flaming torch, the three men started after him.
Buwert had meanwhile drawn his pistol, and as the flickering light
appeared in thelast window but one, Thaler shouted: 'For goodness'
sake, man, why don't you fire?' Buwert aimed his gun, pulled the
trigger, and ran towards the window. Seeing that the mysterious
intruder had disappeared, he now turned to the (unidentified)

THE CRIMINAL CASE

second young man, and asked him to alert the Brandenburg Gate

_

'Tell them the Reichstag is on fire and to call the fire brigade.' 8

The young man did as he was told, while Buwert himself ran off
towards the Simsonstrasse. On the way he met a Reichswehr
soldier and, having a rather poor opinion of civilians, he asked him,
too, to report the fire to the Brandenburg Police Station. The
soldier, who had no intention of doing anything of the kind, agreed,
and - continued on his way. Later, a bus conductor, Karl Scling,
recalled that a Reichswehr soldier had, in fact, boarded his bus at the
Bismarck Memorial stop, at about 9.15 p.m.

Meanwhile Buwert had been joined by other passers-by: Messrs
Karl Kuhl and Hermann Freudenberg, and their respective spouses.
They had all been out walking, had noticed a suspicious glow from
far away, and had rushed to die scene with loud shouts of 'Police !
Fire!', arriving just in time to see the flames lick up the curtains.
Buwert, who at last grasped the fact that someone was deliberately
setting fire to the Reichstag before his eyes, now" ordered Kuhl and
Freudenberg to make sure that the fire brigade had been called.

Together with Frau Wally Freudenberg, the two men ran off
down the Simsonstrasse. When they saw a number of people
coming out of the firman Engineering Institute (VJD.L), they
rushed up to the caretaker, Otto Schaeske, shouting:

*The Reichstag is on fire. Call the fire brigade !

Completely taken aback, Schaeske opened the telephone book,
and started a vain and nervous search for the right number.
Eventually, Emil Luck, who had been helping out in the cloakroom
that night, snatched the book from him, quiddy found the correct
entry, and dialled.

Meanwhile Buwert's shot had brought two patrolmen to the
scene. When Buwert told them briefly what had happened, one of
them decided to make absolutely certain, and ran off to sound the
fire alarm in the near-by Moltkestrasse.

Buwert' s shouting and waving had also attracted the attention of
Constable Helmut Poeschel, who was on duty at the north-eastern
corner of the Reichstag. When he heard Buwert's : 'Fire ! Tell the
doorkeeper of Portal Five,' Poeschel set off at a gallop. Gasping for
breath, he ordered the completely stupefied Albert Wendt to pull
the fire alarm which, as Poeschel knew, was kept in the door-
keeper's lodge. But Wendt refused to believe the constable without

35

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

seeing for himself. He rushed outside, carefully locking the door
behind him. When he saw the blaze, he exclaimed: 'It's the
restaurant! 9 and when Lieutenant Lateit, who had meanwhile
arrived on the scene, told him that the fire brigade had already been
called, he ran back to his lodge and tried to ring up Chief Engineer
Eugen Mutzka and House-Inspector Alexander Scranowitz. In his
excitement he must have misdialled, for he failed to get hold of
either of them, though he did manage to contact the Chief Reich-
stag Messenger, Eduard Prodohl, and Paul Adennann, the night
porter at the Speaker's Residence. While he was still talking to
Prodohl, Wendt could hear the jangle of an approaching fire
engine.

Adennann, for his part, immediately notified the Director of the
Reichstag, Geheimrat Galle. Then he rang up the Prussian Ministry
of the Interior to report the fire to Hermann Goring, the Speaker.
The call was taken by Goring's secretary, Fraulein Grundtmann.

Immediately on his arrival at the Reichstag, lieutenant Lateit
asked Buwert whether the fire brigade had been called. When
Buwert told Him it had, he asked further whether the full-scale
alarm had been sounded. Buwert said no, and Lateit told him to see
to it, but also to keep a close watch on the Reichstag windows and
to fire at anything suspicious.

Lateit then tried to enter the Reichstag, first through Portal Two
(south) and then through Portals Three and Four (east), but found
them all locked. He ran on to Portal Five (north), where Wendt,
the porter, told him that House-Inspector Scranowitz was on his
way with the keys to the inner doors.

Scranowitz had been having his supper in his near-by flat, when
he suddenly heard the fire engines. Fearing the worst, he rushed to
the telephone and called Wendt, quite unaware of the fact that
Wendt had been trying to get hold of him. When Wendt told him
that the restaurant was on fire, Scranowitz yelled at him: *And
why the dickens didn't you report it to note?'

He banged the receiver down and raced across to Portal Five*
Once there, he opened the inner doors and rushed up the staircase,
followed by Lieutenant Lateit, and Constables Losigkeit and
Graening. As they dashed into the large lobby, they noticed a red
glow coming from beyond the Kaiser ^iVilhelm monument. ^JVlicn
Lateit looked through an open glass door into the Session Chamber,
he saw a large flame. In the doorway he spotted a blazing 'cushion',

26

THE CRIMINAL CASE

which turned out to be a folded overcoat. IQ addition, the thick
plush curtains on either side of the glass door were burning, and so
was some of the wooden panelling,

It was about 9.22 p.m. when Lateit entered the Session Chamber.
The whole Chamber was softly lit up by a steady, continuous sheet
of flame over due tribune. The effect was that of a brightly
illuminated church organ. (Lateit was unaware that its 'pipes'
consisted of three blazing curtains.) He observed no other fires in
the Chamber, nor did he notice any smoke. Constable Losigkeit,
on the other hand, who went farther into the Chamber, saw other
flames in the stenographers* well, below.

Lateit, now fully convinced that an incendiary was at work,
ordered the two policemen to draw their revolvers. Meanwhile,
House-Inspector Scranowitz had switched on the light in the
corridors and in the lobby. Lateit, who had been present during the
Bliicher Palace fire in April 1931, was still brmly convinced that the
Chamber could easily be saved by the fire brigade.

On his way back to Portal Five, Lateit noticed a number of small
fires: here a carpet was in flames, there a wastepaper basket.
Everywhere bits of material -were lying about - he counted some
twenty-five of these, each roughly die size of the palm of his hand-
He thought 'they might have been the charred remains of table-
cloths', for all of them were giving off a lot of smoke. On the floor
of the lobby, he found a cap, a tie, and a piece of soap.

Near Portal Five he encountered a number of firemen who were
busy extinguishing fires in the western lobby. To other firemen
standing there he cried :

'It's arson. The place is one great mass of fires/

He ordered one of the firemen to go back to the Session Chamber
with Constable Losigkeit. Then he told his own men to make a
careful search of the whole building for the intruder, while he drove
back to the Brandenburg Gate for reinforcements. His arrival at the
guardroom was recorded as 9.25 p.m. He had been away for a total
often minutes.

While Lateit, Losigkeit, and Graenjng had been looking at the
fire in the Chamber, they had been joined by Constable PocscheL
Lateit ordered him to accompany House-Inspector Scranowitz,
who, after he had switched on the lights in the lobby and corridors,
was about to light up the Chamber as weU. Behind the Kaiser
Wilhdboa monument, Scranowitz noticed one of the many small

27

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

fires Lateit had already observed, and stamped it out. Then he ran
to the restaurant, opened the door, and was met by a mass of flames.
"When he made his way back to the lobby, he noticed that the
curtains and a wooden panel leaning against the wall had caught
fire.

Scranowitz, too, now looked into the Session Chamber - shortly
after Lateit had done so. A single glance showed him that the
curtains behind the Speaker's Chair had caught fire, but that the
panelling was still untouched. But then he observed - or claimed
that he observed - a completely different picture from that
described by Lateit: on the first three rows of deputies' benches
Scranowitz counted some twenty to twenty-five small fires, each
about eighteen inches wide, and all of roughly the same shape. In
addition, the Speaker's Chair and the Orators' Table were ablaze,
and so were the curtains in the stenographers' well. Here the flames,
however, were flickering and 'spluttering' violently. Scranowitz
shut the door to the Chamber and, with Constable Poeschel, who
had been looking over his shoulder, ran across the thickly carpeted
southern corridor to the Bismarck Hall. Just as they passed under
the great chandelier, a man, bare to the waist, suddenly shot across
their path from the left, Le. from the back of the Session Chamber.
The man stopped dead in his tracks and then started to run back, but
when Poeschel raised his pistol, shouting 'Hands up !*, he obediently
raised his arms. He was a tall, well-built young man, completely
out of breath and dishevelled. All Poeschel found on him was a
pocket knife, a wallet, and a passport. While Poeschel was leafing
through this document, House-Inspector Scranowitz, shaking
with rage, yelled at the stranger: *Why did you do it?*

* As a protest,* the man replied.

Scranowitz, a tall, athletic man, hit out at him in blind fury.

Meanwhile, Poeschel had gathered from the man's passport that
his name was Marinus van der Lubbe, that he came from Ley den in
Holland, and that he was born on 13 January 1909.

The time was 9.27 p.m.

Then Poeschel marched his prisoner to Portal Five, where
someone flung a rug over his naked shoulders, before they took
him away to die Brandenburg Gate Police Station.

The fire alarm from the German Engineering Institute was
received at Brigade Headquarters at 9.13 p.m. At 9.14, this call

28

THE CRIMINAL CASE

was duly transmitted to the Linienstrasse Fire Station, whence
a section of pumps under Chief Fire Officer Thnil Puhle was
sent out at once. It arrived at the north-eastern corner of the
Reichstag at 9.18 p.m. At 9.19 p.m. another section, led by Fire
Officer Waldemar Klotz, drew up. It had been sent out from
Turmstrasse Station in response to die fire call from Moltkestrasse.
Each section consisted of four fire engines. At about 9.23 p.m.,
Puhle used ladders to climb up to, and break into, the restaurant; so
great was his hurry that he failed to notice that one restaurant
window was already broken. The door leading to the lobby and the
entire panelling were now ablaze; the curtains had completely
burnt down. There were a number of small fires - for instance, a
window curtain which threatened to flare up in the draught from
the broken window- and these were quickly extinguished. At 9.27
p.m., Puhle crossed to the Session Chamber where he was met by
Fire Officer Waldemar Klotz. Klotz, who had seen Puhle's section
parked at the western side, had not bothered to stop but had gone
on to tackle the fire elsewhere. He made a brief stop at Portal Two
(south) but, finding it locked, he drove right round the building to
Portal Five (north), leaving Fire Officer Franz Wald and one
vehicle behind.

At about 9.20 pjn., Klotz gave orders to make a hose ready,
while he, with Firemen Kiessig and Konig carrying hand pumps,
hurried into the lobby. Here they dealt with a burning carpet, the
curtain of a telephone box, the telephone box itself^ and the
ornamental panelling of a door. At about 9.24 p.m., Klotz entered
the Chamber, and noticed a tremendous draught and a tremendous
wave ofheat, The Chamber itself was full of thick smoke, so that all
he could make out was a glow in the north-eastern corner. Since
he was afraid of increasing the draught, he quickly shut the doors.

A little later, when he looked into the Chamber a second time,
the whole place was a sea of flames. At 9.31 p.m., the tenth-grade
alarm was given (each grade calling for one section of four pumps).
A few minutes later, eight further sections started towards the
Reichstag. With them came Chief Fire Director Gempp, the
head of the Berlin Fire Department, accompanied by Fire Directors
Lange and Tamm, and Cnief Engineer Meusser. Quite separately,
both Gempp and Lange gave the full-scale (isth grade or grand)
alarm at 9.42 p.m. Within minutes, therefore, fifteen sections of
pumps with more than sixty vehicles had been thrown into the fire-

29

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

. At the same time, a number of fire-boats began tackling
the fire from the river Spree.

By the rime the fire was finally put out at n p.m., the Session
Chamber was completely gutted. The panelling was gone, and so
were the three-tiered tribune, the glorious carvings, and die glass
dome, which now offered an unimpeded view of the night sky.

It was also at about n p.m. that Paul Bogun, an engineer,
reported to Lieutenant Lateit at the Brandenburg Gate Police
Station. He told the lieutenant that, at about 9 p.m., he had come
out of a lecture at the Engineering Institute, near the Reichstag, and
finding that his tram had just left, he had decided to walls: home.
When he was some twenty yards from Portal Two, he heard a
'rattle', and then saw a man step out of the swinging doors. The
man hesitated while looking across at two women, one of whom
had appeared to give him a signal. The man had run off to wards the
Konigsplatz, peering back at the Reichstag 'most suspiciously'.

Lateit told Bogun to report the matter to Police Headquarters at
once. Bogun, however, preferred to wait for another three days
before doing so.

Another person to come forward, Frau Kuesner, who passed the
Speaker's Palace at about 8.55 p.m. on her way to the National
Club, also alleged that she had seen a man, running off. Later, it
emerged that the man in question had, in fact, been an innocent
pedestrian, who had taken shelter from the icy wind in Portal Two
while waiting for a bus. When the bus came into si ght he had made
a dash for it.

30

2. The Arsonist

MARINUS VAN DER LUBBE

IN September 1955 - twenty-two years after the Reichstag fire -
Johan van der Lubbe of Amsterdam petitioned the Berlin County
Court to repeal the sentence passed by the Supreme Court in
Leipsig on his brother Marinus on 23 December 193 3 . Three years
later, his petition was dismissed for purely formal reasons.

Thus disappeared what little chance there still was of having the
mysterious events of 27 February 1933, and the enigma of Marinus
van der Lubbe, examined by an independent court.

What sort of man was this young Dutchman who, on the evening
of 27 February 1933, was apprehended in the flaming Reichstag?
Rarely has the life of any man been studied in such great detail, and
yet been so deliberately distorted and misunderstood. To this day
most people believe that van der Lubbe was :

1. A congenital idiot;

2. A juvenile delinquent;

3. A pathological vagrant;

4. A pathological liar;

6. A homosexual prostimte in tie serv^

All attempts to describe the real van der Lubbe come up against
two books published in 1933 and 1934 by Communist pro-
pagandists in Paris, with the sole aim of proving that the Reichstag
was burned by the Nazis. In order to make that story stick, van der
Lubbe had to be turned into a Nazi tool at all costs.

Part I, entitled The Brown Book of the Hitler Terror and the Burning
of the Reichstag, appeared shortly after the fire; Part n, entitled The
Reichstag Fire Trial or the Second Brown Book of the Hitler Terror,
appeared after the trial and had a special introductory chapter by
Gebrgi Dimitrov. In what follows, we shall refer to the two as
Brown Books land irrespectively.

Soon after Inspector Heisig had given the alarm, officers of

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Division IA started to report at Police Headquarters. When Diels
and Schneider eventually arrived with the prisoner, everyone kept
peering in to catch a glimpse of the half-naked Dutchman.

In his evidence to die Supreme Court, Heisig later described the
strange situation as follows:

The whole room was teeming with people. First of all there were the
officers from my own and Scorn near-by offices. Then there were
Police President von Levetzow, the Vice-President, Ministcrialrat
Dicls, Ministerialdirektor Dalucgc, together with a number of
gentlemen from all sorts of Ministries. Altogether some forty to fifty
people must have crowded into the litde room, for it was completely
packed.

All these men had come in, not only to catch a glimpse of the
arsonist, but also to learn, what further outrages might be expected
that night. The presence of so many of his superiors naturally
perturbed young Inspector Heisig, particularly when they kept
interrupting his interrogation to fire questions of their own at the
prisoner.

In general, the average Dutchman understands German far more
readily than the average German understands Dutch, but in van der
Lubbe' s case Heisig had no difficulty at all in. making him out, as he
spoke German fluently, though with an unmistakable Dutch
accent. Van der Lubbe himself insisted that he needed no inter-
preter, and spoke out quite fearlessly. Heisig had to interrupt him
many times because most ofhis statements threatened to degenerate
into political harangues. To begin with, Heisig asked him to explain
his motives, so as to decide whether or not the crime fell within the
province of the Political Branch, Van der Lubbe replied that his
motives had been political: he wanted to encourage the German
workers to fight for their freedom. His deed was meant as an
example.

Lubbe denied having any connection with the Communist Party.
During the discussion ofhis finances, van der Lubbe volunteered
the information that he had used part of his extremely meagre
resources to buy firelighters and matches for a number of other
fires as welL When pressed by the astonished Heisig, van der Lubbe
confessed that he had set fire to the Welfare Office in Neukolln, a
Berlin suburb, two days before.

3*

THE CRIMINAL CASE

Detective-Inspector Walter Zirpins took over from Heisig.
After another few hours, van der Lubbe grew visibly tired. By
3 a.m. he was completely exhausted, and Zirpins had him put in a
cell for the night.

Meanwhile Heisig rushed offa letter to the police in Leyden, van
der Lubbe 1 s home town. Van der Lubbe was known so well diere
that the Dutch authorities were able to send back an immediate
reply. In it Detective-Inspector N. G. Weyers confirmed that
Marinus van der Lubbe was a dangerous Communist.

At about 8 a.m. next morning, van der Lubbe was fetched for
further interrogation. Once again, a host of curious people popped
in to have a look, but this time the atmosphere had grown a great
deal less informal. All van der Lubbe's statements were now taken
down verbatim. Because of the special interest the case was bound to
excite, Heisig asked his secretaries to make as many copies as
possible ; van der Lubbe signed each page of every one.

gathered from the police report dated 3 March 1933 and from the
evidence of Inspector Heisig and Dr Zirpins before the Supreme
Court. In the police report we read :

He is endowed with a great deal of (admittedly very one-sided) in-
telligence, and, appearances to the contrary, he is a very bright fellow.
His grasp of the German language is so good that he can follow even
finger shades of meanings, though his own speech is slurred. Thus
he could not only follow the examination out remember entire
sentences and repeat them word for word. [Especially during the
discussion of his motives] he kept correcting those phrases which, he
thought, did not fully reflect ti real

And this is what Dr Zirpins stated in evidence before the Supreme
Court:

... he corrected the statement, going into questions of style, and
rejecting certain passages out of hand. In short he had no need of an
interpreter.

Dr Zirpins also mentioned another characteristic :

He had a remarkable capacity not only for repeating dates, but for
remembering numbers in general. There are some people who cannot
remember numbers, but he had, as it were, a genius for numbers,
could remember dates and times, etc.

33

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Few believed Ziipins when he went on to say:

I gave him a small piece of paper to sketch on. First he drew a plan of
the Welfare Office. At the time I did not know the layout, but, in feet,
his plan was perfectly correct. ... I had been in the Reichstag only
twice before, and did not know the precise set-up, but van der Lubbe
drew everything so perfectly that afterwards, when -we inspected the
scene of the crime, everything -fell into place. I myself 'would - quite
frankly - have been quite unable to reconstruct the scene nearly as well
as he did. I gave him a red and a blue pencil with which he traced his
path in and out of the building with perfect facility.

Marinus van der Lubbe was a bricklayer by trade and had
learned, drawing at night school. In addition he had an almost
phenomenal memory. In the final police report we are told: *He
had a remarkable sense of direction, which he probably acquiredin
the course of his travels. Although he has been in Berlin for only
eight days, he is able to describe long walks, street by street . . /

During his evidence before the Supreme Court, on 27 September
I933> Heisig was asked whether he was present during the re-
construction of the crime. Heisig replied :

Yes, and van der Lubbe led us. We neither indicated the direction nor
influenced him in any way. He was almost delighted to show us the
path he had taken. He said he had an excellent sense of direction
because of his poor eyesight. Another sense had taken the place of his
eyes.

All these statements by Heisig and Dr Zirpins were given little
credence - they simply did not fit into the general scheme of things.
For one thing, they ran counter to the public image of van der
Lubbe as an apathetic moron; for another, they bore out van der
Lubbe's claim that he was the sole culprit when all the experts said
he could not have been.

We can form a good idea of Marinus van der Lubbe's real
character from the statement he made to the police on 3 March
1933:

At the outset, I must insist that my action was inspired by political
motives. In Holland I read that the National Socialists had come to
power in Germany. I have always followed German politics with
keen interest and I read all the articles I could get hold ofon Brtoing,
Papen and Schleicher. When Hitler took over the Government, I
expected much enthusiasm for him but also much tension. I bought

34

THE CRIMINAL CASE

all the newspapers on this subject, and found that they were of my
opinion. I myself am a Leftist, and was a member of the Communist
Party until 1929. What I did not like about the Party is the way they
lord it over the workers, instead of letting the workers decide for
themselves. I side with the proletariat in the class struggle. Its own
leaders must stand at the head The masses themselves must decide
what they ought to do and what they ought not to do. [These were in
fact the views of the Rode or International Communists, a tiny Dutch
splinter group completely unknown in Germany.] In Germany a
National Coalition has now been formed, and I think it holds two
dangers: (i) it oppresses the workers, and (2) it refuses to submit to
other countries so that it is bound to lead to war. I watched on for a
few days and then I decided to go to Germany and to see for mysel I
made the decision without anyone else, and I came to Germany all by
myself. Once here, I intended to observe how the National Coalition
affects the workers and what the workers think about the National
Coalition. I started in Dusseldor where I spoke to "workers in the
street. I did the same thing in other towns. In Berlin, I also studied the
pamphlets of the various parties and then went to the Welfare Offices
in lichtenbcrg, Wedding, and NeukSlln. I also went to the Labour
Exchange, but it was closed because of the elections. I found out that
whereas the National Coalition has complete freedom in Germany,
the workers have not.

Now, what the workers' organizations are doing is not likely to rouse
the workers to the struggle for freedom. That is why I discussed better
ways and means with the workers. The privileges which the National
Socialists enjoy today must also be enjoyed by die workers. That is the
reason why I asked tne workers to demonstrate. But all I was told was
to take the matter to the Party - the Communist Party. But I had
heard that a Communist demonstration was disbanded by the leaders
on the approach of the police, and that the people listened to these
leaders instead of carrying out their own resolutions. I realized then
that the -workers will do nothing by themselves, that they will do
nothing against a system which grants freedom to one side and metes
out oppression to the other. In my opinion something absolutely had
to be done in protest against this system. Since the -workers would do
nothing, I had to do something by myself. I considered arson a suitable
method. I did not wish to harm private people but something that
belonged to the system itself: official buildings, the Welfare Office for
example, for that is a building in which the workers come together, or
the City Hall, because it is a building belonging to the system, and
further the Palace, because it lies in the centre of the city, and if it goes
up, the huge flames can be seen from far away. . . . Wnen these three

35

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

fires failed to come off, that is to say when my protest did not come
off, I decided on the Reichstag as the centre of the whole system. . . .

And finally, van der Lubbe's answer to the crucial question :

As to the question whether I acted alone, I declare emphatically that
this was the case. No one at all helped me, nor did I meet a single
person in the Reichstag. 1

Thus did the young radical explain his motives to the police, to
the P-Yamining Magistrate, the Public Prosecutor, and finally the
Supreme Court Judges. Not one of them was prepared to listen to
him, partly because his theories transcended their narrow political
horizons, and partly because of their hatred of everything that
smacked of Ck>mmunism.

CHILDHOOD AND BACKGROUND

In the year 1904, Franciscus Cornelis van der Lubbe, a forty-one-
year-old hawker, married Petronella van Handel-Peuthe, a
divorcee, in Leyden. From her first marriage, she brought him four
children - one girl and three boys - who were joined in time by
three children from, the new marriage: Johan, also called Jan;
Cornelis and Marinus (Rinus). By the time Marinus was born on
13 January 1909, his parents had ceased to get on with each other.
Soon afterwards they separated. The father took to the road and to
drink, leaving his asthmatic wife to fend for her many children and
herself She opened a small shop in 's Hertogenbosch, and did all
her housework, of which there was a great deal with so large a
family, in the evenings. In short, her life would have been very
hard for a healthy woman, let alone for a semi-invalid. As a result,
the children were left to themselves most of the time and it was no
wonder that Marinus, the youngest, ran wild and had to be sent to a
home for neglected children - for a 'few weeks' as he himself put it.
One ofhis teachers during that period, van der Meene, has described
him as a 'talented boy of average application 9 . Marinus gave him
little cause for complaint and at no time did he have to punish the
boy severely.

Fate struck Marinus a severe blow in 1921 : his mother died when
he was only twelve years old and he joined the household ofhis
stepsister, Annie Sjardijn, who lived in Oegsgeest near Leyden.
She herself had three children of her own, aged two, four and six
years respectively. Marinus, who, according to those who knew

36

THE CRIMINAL CASE

at the time, was a charming, alert and respectful young lad,
naturally acted die big brodier to his small nephews. 1

Marinus continued to attend the Christian School in Leyden for
eighteen months after his mother's death, and then his brother-in-
law apprenticed him to a builder. After work Marinus went to
night school to continue his studies. At the age of sixteen Marinus
was so healdiy and strong that all his friends called him*Dempsey*.

It was from his workmates that he first learned the new re-
volutionary gospel with which he quickly replaced all he had been
taught by his Calvinist teachers, and which opened up to him an
entirely new world of ideas, concepts and words.

Marinus, the boy who grew up with a minimum of parental
authority and supervision, found it easy to dismiss all authority -
individual or social - as completely unnecessary. He started his
fight against 'bourgeois capitalism' by becoming a member of De
Zaaier (The Sowers), a Communist Youth Organization. In it, he
first proved his great ability to sway others.

Marinus worked hard at his job and earned good money. He
spent much of his spare time reading and became a familiar figure
in die Leyden Public Library. Among the heavy books he borrowed
were Philosophy and Labour and Today and Tomorrow by Henry
Ford, and Marx's Das KapitaL His longing to see the world was fed
by Sven Hedin's books on Tibet and China, so much so that some
years later he actually left for China - on foot. Needless to say, the
foundation of his self-taught knowledge was rather shaky, so that
his hatred of capitalism was based less on Marxist 'science' than on
youthful enthusiasm and Utopian dreams ofheaven and earth.

Then fate struck him yet another blow. During a lunch break he
fell victim to what was meant to be a harmless joke. Two of his
friends playfully pulled an empty lime sack over his head and a
piece of lime got into his eye causing a painful inflammation.
Since misfortunes never come singly, both eyes were damaged by
more lime a short time later. He had to spend five miserable
months in Professor van der Hoeve's eye-dinic. Despite three
operations, his cornea turned opaque, his eyesight became weak,
and his eyelids were ever afterwards subject to all sorts of infections.

This accident was a turning point in his life: he had to break off
his apprenticeship and, not surprisingly, he is said to have toyed
with the idea of suicide. He had no home, no parents, and now he
was near-blind. The long months in the clinic in which he could do

37

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

little but fed sorry for himself, were bound to increase his unrest
and dissatisfaction with life, and he only saved his sanity by
immersing himself completely in politics. He was awarded a very
small weekly disability pension - seven gulden and forty-four
cents - which was not nearly enough to live on, so that he had to do
casual labour from time to time. During the intervals he lived on
the dole. Among his many casual jobs, he was assistant waiter in the
Railway Restaurant at Leyden (winter 1927), porter in the 'Hof van
Holland' hotel in Nordwijk (summer 1928), and a potato trader on
his own account. He also worked on a dredger, on a ferry plying
between Nordwijk and Sassenheim, as a butcher, a messenger boy,
and in the Dutch bulb trade. In short, he was anything but an idler.

In the Young Communist League, for which he worked
indefatigably, his physical strength, intelligence, and lack of
bourgeois prejudices marked Marinus out from die start. Very
quickly he fell foul not only of the local police, but also of his
ever-correct brother-in-law, Sjardijn. After countless political
arguments, Marinus left Oegsgeest for good, and at the age
of eighteen he moved back to Leyden to share a room with the
Communist student Piet van Albada. Quite naturally, Albada and
his political friends exerted a great deal of influence on him, so
much so that Marinus soon attracted the attention of the Leyden
police as welL

Despite his youth, Marinus was allowed to take the chair at a
public meeting of the Leyden Communist Youth League on 15
November 1928. In October 1929 he rented an empty store-room,
proudly baptized it Lenin House, and offered it as a meeting hall to
the Youth Group. He wrote leaflets and edited factory and school
pamphlets, in all of which he attacked militarism and capitalism ; he
was present at every strike meeting and political demonstration
held in Leyden, and worked tirelessly for tike revolutionary cause.
His activities as public speaker and heckler soon made him a well-
known figure, particularly among the unemployed, whom he led
during a number of processions through the town.

Once, when his political opponents, theDutchSocialDemocrats,
held a rally, he organized a Communist counter-demonstration.
On that occasion he launched his first direct attack on an institution
against which he was afterwards to wage private war : the Welfare
Office. For him the Welfare Office was the epitome of the hated
capitalist system, a system in which petty officials pompously throw

38

THE CRIMINAL CASE

crumbs from the opulent tables of the rich to the poor and dis-
possessed. Marinus 'hit back* by throwing bricks through the
windows of the Welfare Office. He was arrested and sentenced to
fourteen days in prison.

Though Marinus was quick to take offence, and quick to argue,
he was no more truculent than most young radicals. Thus he
repeatedly resigned from the Young Communist League, only to
rejoin once his anger had abated. Finally, he broke completely with
the Dutch Communist Party for reasons still shrouded in mystery
but obviously related to mis independent attitude and his spon-
taneous identification with the working class.

Through Piet van Albada, Marinus became familiar with the
ideas of such 'left deviationists f as the LAO (Left Workers'
Opposition) the AAU (General Workers' Union) and last but not
least the PIC (Party of International Communists) or Rode Com-
munists, as they were also called. This 'Party*, which had only a
handful of members in Holland, was opposed to the very idea of
discipline and leadership, and saw the salvation of the working
class in spontaneous, individual action alone.

THE 'PATHOLOGICAL VAGRANT*

None of the men who later cross-examined Marinus van der
Lubbe had ever felt the urge to pull up their stakes and to go out
into the world - without money or friends. No wonder therefore
that they all looked down on him as a shiftless vagrant.

Like so many unemployed workers anxious to escape the sad
monotony of their enforced indolence, Marinus van der Lubbe
decided to change one kind of misery for what turned out to be
another, and took to the roads of Europe. He was an exceptionally
undemanding person; night after night he shared his quarters with
the flotsam of numan society, and he was content - because all of
th^T" applauded his scathing attacks on the State and on capitalism.

Marinus's first journey did not take him, to Sven Hedin's
mysterious East, but only to Northern France. Then, in 1928, he
hiked through Belgium and spent a few days in the German city of
Aachen. Prom August to November 1930 he was in Calais, where
he conceived the idea of swimming the Channel one day. He was
young and strong, used to exertions and unusually persistent once
he made up his mind to do grunting . He returned to Ley den from

39

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

his first trip, firmly resolved to see as much of the world as he
possibly could.

In the spring of 1931, Marinus and his Communist friend,
Hendrik Holverda, decided to raise money for another trip by
what was then a favourite method with impecunious globe-
trotters: they sold postcards bearing their own Hkenesses. On this
particular photograph Holverda had raised his clenched fist in the
Communist salute. The text, which was printed in French, Dutch
and German, read: 'Workers* Sports ana Study Tour of Marinus
van der Lubbe and H. Holverda through, Europe and the Soviet
Union. Start of the tour from Leyden, April 14th, 193 1'.

But they could not raise enough money and, on his way back to
Holland, van der Lubbe was arrested by the Prussian police in
Gronau (Westphalia) for selling postcards without a licence. On
13 May 193 1, the court imposed a fine of fifty marks or ten days'
imprisonment, and Marinus chose prison.

Naturally he was greatly disappointed, particularly since he
knew that the Communists in Leyden would gloat over this set-
back; yet he would not have been Marinus van der Lubbe had he
given up completely. In fact, he tried time and again to reach his
great goal - die Soviet Union, and it was this very persistence
which enabled his detractors to say that van der Lubbe kept falln'ng
about fantastic projects which he never carried out.

On 29 September 193 1, he made his first tour of the Balkans, and
wrote to Koos Vink from Yugoslavia :

If it is at all possible, I should like to fork left in Turkey, and go on to
Tiflis (Russia). However, I anticipate great difficulties. . . .

And on 14 October, he added the following reflections :

I had intended, while on my way to China, to visit Tiflis in Russia.
Since, however, I have not come far enough, I shall make, not for
Tiflis, but for European Russia, say for Odessa or Rijeo [?] There I
shall somehow try to smuggle myself across the Red border

A week later -on 21 October -Marinus wrote to Koos Vink:

I thought I might try to cross into Russia from Rumania but because
that too is just another vast detour and because it's probably very
difficult to get across the border, I have decided against it. . . .

On 12 February 1932, when he had reached Vienna in the course of
his second Balkan tour, he wrote to Koos Vink:

40

THE CRIMINAL CASE

I have just got a Hungarian visa and shall leave Vienna straight away,
since otherwise the wnole thing will take far too long. I shaUprobably
go on to Russia, that is if nothing special happens. . . .

From his letter of 19 April it became clear that something 'special'
had, in fact, happened:

When you receive this letter, I shall have spent a whole week in a
Polish prison. I was given three weeks, for illegal entry, and when my
tune is up I shall return to Holland.

Marinus himself never claimed that he had been to Russia; that
claim was made 'on his behalf by his former Party comrades
anxious to show him up as a liar, particularly when it came to his
attitude to the Soviet Union. It was to refute these and other
slanders that Marinus's real friends, and especially the Rode or
International Communists, published the Red Book (Roodboek)
which, apart from a contemptuous and brilliant refutation of every
Communist slander, also contained Marinus's diary for the period
6 September - 24 October 193 1, together with a large number of
his letters.

This brings us to his Channel-swimming attempts which even so
sympathetic a man as Dr Seuffert, his counsel, has considered a clear
sign of Marinus's boastfulness. However, we know from Mr
Justice dejongh that 'Marinus was a fine sportsman, who had swum
from Noordwijk to Schevemngen'.* Now, a glance at the map will
show that this was a very respectable achievement. Why, then,
should his attempts to do what so many others have done - to swim
the Channel be considered a sign of boastfulness or a proof of his
pathological need to impress others?

At the time, the Dutch newspaper, Het Leven, had offered a
considerable prize - 5,000 gulden - to the first Dutchman to swim
the Channel, and Marinus was a Dutchman and a good swimmer.
And who could really have blamed him if, apart from the large
prize, he was also attracted by the glory of it all?

Tn his diary or in his letters he never mentioned the Channel
crossing in other t-Tia-n matter-of-fact terms :

Having re-considered my plan once again this morning, I have come
to the conclusion that I had best be bacK home at about die end of May
or thf- beginning of June. Then I wilt have rime to trials -m my mind
whether I will take part in the Channel crossing or not. From no won,

4*

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

I have decided not to rush about so much but - if possible at all - to go
swimming every day.

How very seriously he took this business may be gathered from
the fact that on 14 October, while he was still in Rumania, he sent a
letter to a Dutchman he had met in Calais asking for work near the
French coast, so that he could practise swimming every day. Even
then he was not too optimistic about his chances, for on the same
day he made the following entry in his diary: 1 have therefore
decided to return so that I can be ready for the summer. But even
when I return, things won't go as smoothly as all that.'

How very unboastful the whole scheme was is further borne out
by the following entry, dated 21 October: 'By the way, I have
tried to cross the Danube. But I failed, for the water was too cold.
If I swam every day, things might be different/

In his letter of die same day to Koos Vink, he returned to the
Channel crossing once again :

As regards the crossing, I should like to ask you if Het Leven has said
anything at all about holding the prize open until next year. Please tell
me if so, and if possible send me tfi^ article regarding the Channel
crossing and the swimming. Incidentally, last week I wrote to the
Dutch gentleman in France, asking about work and also if he would
send his reply to your address. If you should hear from him...

The Red Book also published a postcard from an Austrian
swiniinerwhohadaUowedMariniistoiJseherboatforhisChamiel

Shortly before his second journey to Hungary in January 1932,
Marinus had another clash with the hated Welfare Office. Having
been refused an increase in his unemployment relief^ he once again
smashed a few windows as a protest. Marinus was sentenced to
three months' imprisonment in absentia.

On his return from Hungary, he was welcomed by a special
reception committee: a police escort. On 15 June 1932, he sent the
following cry for help to Koos Vink:

As you can see from this letterhead I have landed in prison in Utrecht,
because I was sentenced to three months on account of the windows
... I can however appeal against the sentence which costs approxi-
mately i.ojL Would you therefore be kind enough to send me a
postal order for x.sojl. at once, so that I can appeal?

42

THE CRIMINAL CASE

After hearing the appeal on 29 June 1932, the Court upheld the
original three months sentence. As a result, Marinus was in
Sc&veningen prison from 12 July until 2 October 1932. After his
release he paid a number of brief visits : to his father in Dordrecht,
to Amsterdam, and to The Hague.

Marinus' s hatred of the Welfare Office also took forms other
than smashing windows. When a further request for an increase
was refused, he went on hunger strike and managed to last out for a
full eleven days. Then he was carted off to hospital, but only when
he was promised that his request would be met in full did he finally
break his long fast.

Once again he had proved his remarkable strength of purpose.
At the same time he had forged a new weapon which he was to use
many times again: for example, during the preliminary in-
vestigation into the Reichstag fire. But there he met an equally
determined opponent : the Examining Magistrate, Paul Vogt.

It has often been asked why Marinus should have gone back to
Budapest so soon after his return from Hungary. Later, in the Su-
preme Court, he replied to the President's question: 'Why did you
visit Hungary so often? Did you have special contacts there?' - by
which, needless to say, the President meant political contacts - with
a curt *No', and there is, in fact, no evidence that any such contacts
were made. Even so, the Red Book published a photograph of a
Hungarian girl not, as the authors emphasized, to disprove the
Communist slander that van der Lubbe was a homosexual, but
'. . . in the hope that one of the readers of this book, which is
printed in four languages, may recognize the woman in the
photograph and may be able to provide us with her name and
present address, so that we may turn to her for some explanation
about her relationship with van der Lubbe/

In an undated letter (published in th&ReaBook) which he must
have posted towards the end of October 193 1, van der Lubbe had
written: 'Certain circumstances force me to leave Budapest
tomorrow for H6dmez5vsarhely. I think I shall probably be
needing some money there . . .'

It must have been exceptional circumstances indeed which drove
Marinus to ask for an urgent loan of 2. 5 gulden, to be sent by express
to that unpronounceable town, and it seems likely that the attractive
original of the photograph was somehow involved in it all.

43

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

On his return to Holland, Marinus could not wait to find out
whether a letter from Budapest was waiting for him. Though he
knew he would be back in Leyden on Tuesday, 8 December
1931, he wrote to Koos Vink on Thursday, 3 December, from
Ensdhede: *. . . in case a letter from Budapest should arrive before
Sunday, would you please have it translated at once and send it on
to me by express? If it should arrive after Sunday, please do nothing,
I shall be able to deal with it myself.'

Quite obviously, Marinus treated his love affair with extreme
discretion, for otherwise the editors of the Red Book should not have
had to appeal to the world at large for the girl's name and address.

MARINUS VAN DER LUBBE'S
LAST JOURNEY

On 30 January 1933, Dutch newspapers, in common with
newspapers the world over, reported the Nazi victory in Germany
in banner headlines. Adolf Hitler had been appointed Reich
Chancellor. Subsequent issues were foil of gory reports about Nazi
outrages. Only the Communist papers consoled their readers with
glib assurances that Hiderism was nothing but the death rattle of
expiring capitalism. Soon the victorious workers would sweep
away even this excrescence and under the leadership of the Van-
guard of the proletariat* - the Communist Party of Germany
begin to build a better and more equitable society. Marinus van der
Lubbe, who bought all the papers he could, had heated discussions
with his friends, and particularly with Koos Vink, about the
revolutionary possibilities which might, indeed which were bound
to, result from the inevitable clash between the bourgeois-fascist
hordes and the revolutionary proletariat. He felt that something
tremendous, something unique, was happening in Germany and,
after waiting for another few days, he set out on foot for Berlin,
the great centre of political events. The date was 3 February 193 3 .

At first everything went according to plan. Passing Kleve,
Diisseldorfj, Essen and Dortmund, he reached Paderborn on 10
February. On the 12th, a Sunday, he was in Hameln. Then he
continued via Braunschweig, Burg, and Genthin. He spent the
night of 13 February in the small village of Morsleben, and the
night of 1 7 February in die casual ward run by FrauHedwig Wagner
in Glindow near Potsdam. On the afternoon of the following day

44

THE CRIMINAL CASE

a Saturday -he reached Berlin, having hitched a ride in a lorry for
die last stretch. He put up in the men's hostel in the Alexandrinen-
strasse which he remembered from his first visit to Berlin.

Next morning (Sunday) he went to a concert arranged by the
German Social Democratic Party in the Biilowplatz, and watched
the police closing this innocent function without any explanation.
In the afternoon he attended a demonstration of the Rekhsbanner
(Social Democratic Corps) in theLustgarten, and in the evening he
went to see Rebellen, a film starring Luis Trenker.

On Monday morning he cleared the snow outside the hostel,
and then wrote a few letters to Holland, including one to Koos
Vink, whom he asked to forward his disability pension.

It did not take Marinus long to abandon his rosy view of the
situation - nowhere had he met the anticipated resolution to fight
against the brown 'mercenaries of capitalism', and though he missed
no opportunity of inveighing against Hitlerism, no one seemed to
care. In the wintry streets of Berfin, atthe Welfare Offices in Wedd-
ing and NeukSlhi, in the various labour exchanges he visited -
everywhere he arrived at the same disappointing conclusion : there
was not the slightest hope of mass revolutionary action. He
suggested spontaneous protest marches, of the kind that had proved
so successful in Holland, but people either took no notice of him
or else treated him with suspicion. Why did this foreign busybody
rant in the street, they wondered, instead of leaving things in the
hands of the great German Communist Party, who, after all, knew
best. No doubt the man was a Nazi spy.

Marinus spent Monday and Tuesday nights - 20 and 21 February
193 3 - in the Frobdstrasse hosteL

On Wednesday, 2,2 February, at about 10 a.m., he turned up
outside the Welfare Office in 'red* Neukdlln, where he harangued a
number of unemployed who happened to be standing about. This
harangue later provided the TforamfniTig Magistrate with the much-
needed 'link* between van der Lubbe and his alleged Communist
contacts (the indictment devoted no less than fifteen pages to what
was said on that occasion). In fact, as we shall see, Marinus's
remarks were no more 'significant* than any previous or sub-
sequent comments he made on conditions in Germany. The only
thing which distinguished this occasion from all the others was that
it was here, in Neukdlln, that van der Lubbe first suspected the
truth: among the countless unemployed and Communists he had

45

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

met in Berlin, not a single one was prepared to make even the
slightest sacrifice for the cause. If anything at all could still be done,
he would have to do it by himself .

On Thursday morning he got dressed, drank some coffee and
then went to Schlaffke's Cafe*. At about eleven o'clock he walked
to the Alexanderplatz Post Office to pick up the three gulden which
Koos Vink had forwarded to him. On a billboard he saw a placard
announcing a Communist Party meeting in the Sportpalast, and he
immediately made for it, after having asked a newspaper-seller the
way. He arrived at the Sportpalast at about 2 p.m. and obtained a
ticket. Then he walked back to the Alexanderplatz, and thawed out
in the warm post office in the Konigstrasse, while studying the
pamphlets, newspapers and election manifestos he had meanwhile
collected. As he intended speaking at the meeting he made a
number of notes. Then he walked about the streets, and finally re-
appeared at the Sportpalast at about 6 p.m. The main speaker was
to be the Communist deputy Wilhelm Pieck.

As it happened, Marinus van der Lubbe was not given a chance to
express his views - die meeting was closed by the police as soon ask
started, and with no resistance on the part of the audience. Com-
pletely disgusted, van der Lubbe returned to his hostel, seething
with impotent rage and unable to fall asleep for a long time. The
great Communist Party of Germany had gone into voluntary
liquidation!

On Friday morning he was back in Neukolln, a district with
which he had by now become quite familiar. He had given up the
idea of waiting for die German revolution, and took his leave ofhis
new acquaintances. Then he walked back towards the Alexander-
platz. Quite suddenly he had the feeling that he must make one last
attempt to persuade j ust a few workers to stand up to the Nazis. He
retraced his steps to Neukolln and, in Prinz-Handjery Strasse, he
came across a number of young people with whom he began to
discuss his ideas. Again he was met with polite indifference. Dis-
mayed, he toned his back on them and return

It was that Friday night that he finally decided to take matters
into his own hands, and to begin by setting a number of public
buildings on fire. Perhaps once the intimidated masses saw these
strongholds of capitalism going up in flames, they might shake off
t-friMr lethargy even at **V"g late hour.

46

(3DNW1N3 HinOS) OMlTYDIOd

PORTAL RYE (NORTH ENTRANCE)

FIG 4. Ground plan and section of sub-
terranean passage joining boiler house
to Reichstag. "Hie Speaker's residence
with branch tunnel (dotted lines) appears
between the boiler house and Reichstag.
From Rridutagshaus in Berlin, p. 16,
Institute for Contemporary History,
Munich.

THE CRIMINAL CASE

THE FOUR FIRES

On Saturday morning at about 10 a.m., Marinus left the hostel
in the direction of Neukolln, passing the Town Hall and the Palace
on the way. He then bought matches at Otto Zochert's in the
Annenstrasse, and two packets of firelighters at B. Braid's in the
Neanderstrasse. He specially asked for firelighters 'with a red
flame* on the wrapper, Le. for the 'Oldin* brand.

On leaving the shop, he at once opened the packets and looked
at the contents very carefully. 8

In yet another shop, Heleski's in the Liegnitzer Strasse, he asked
for two more packets of lighters. As the shopkeeper did not under-
stand him at once, he explained: 'Dinger zum Kaeheln! 9 (Kachel =
'stove* in Dutch, but 'tile' in German). Asked whether he was
a Dutchman, he quickly replied that he came from the Rhino-
land.

At about 4 p.m. he turned the corner to the Neukolln Welfare
Office, for he had decided to make a start right there.

The wooden hut was surrounded by a five-foot fence. While
examining the layout very carefully, Marinus spotted an open
window and, since it was still too light, he decided to return later.
He was back at 6.30 p.m., swung himself over the fence, divided
one packet of firelighters in two, lit one half, and then threw it
through the open window at the back, into what turned out to be
the ladies 9 lavatory. The firelighter landed on the concrete floor and
charred the lavatory door before it burnt itself out. Van der Lubbe
had meanwhile climbed up on a windowsLU, where he lit the
remaining half of the packet and threw it on to the snow-covered
roof. Then he jumped down again, threw another half packet on to
the eastern side of the roof, and made his getaway.

The lighter on the roof did its job so well that a fire was noticed
soon afterwards by two passers-by. They summoned Police-
Sergeant Albrecht who, with another passer-by, managed to put
the fire out fairly quickly. As both witnesses stated later, the roofing
had caught fire despite the snow. This alone shows the effectiveness
of the sawdust-Hand-petroleum firelighters van der Lubbe was
using.

Van der Lubbe had long disappeared by the time the fire was
discovered and put out: ne had made for the Hermannspktz
underground station to catch a train to the Alexanderpktz. From

47

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

there, he walked through the Neue Konigstrasse to the Town Hall
which he reached at about 7.15 p.m. He had noticed an open base-
ment window earlier during the day, and now threw a burning
packet of firelighters through it - into the flat of Engineer Richard
Kiekbusctu

Here, too, van der Lubbe ran away without awaiting the out-
come. The fire cut a large hole into the floor, and also burned a coat-
rack, the wallpaper and a large section of the skirting-board. The
flames were so high that they scorched the ceiling. Kiekbusch,
attracted by the smell, put out the fire just in time, for *... in-
flammable materials were stored in the adjoining rooms, and the
fire might easily have eaten its way through the plasterboard walls
into the other flats/

Though he was extremely angry, Kiekbusch did not report the
matter to the police. Instead he simply notified his own superiors
next morning, and was told 'not to make a fuss about trifles'. 4
As Kiekbusch explained later, thoughtless or malicious passers-by
had more than once thrown burning cigarette butts through the
open windows, thus causing a number of minor fires.

Van der Lubbe next made for the old Imperial Palace, his third
objective. As luck would have it, a scaffolding had been placed in
front of the west entrance, which Marinus, the former bricklayer,
had little difficulty in climbing. Once on top, he walked along the
western edge of the roof, then along the southern edge until he
came to a number of double windows with a common balustrade.
One of the outer windows (the fourth) was slightly ajar, and he
threw a burning packet of firelighters insi.de. It struck against the
inner panes, fell down and burned the sill.

Next van der Lubbe discovered a kind of roof-arbour, belonging
to a retired gentleman by the name of Schonfelder. Though he
made repeated attempts to set fire to the wooden structure, the wind
proved far too strong. In the end, Marinus climbed down the
scaffolding and went back to sleep in the Alexandrinenstrasse
hosteL At 10.10 p jn., Fireman Hermann Schulz of the Palace Fire
Brigade noticed the sm<11 of smoke during his round through the
top of the Palace. He opened Room 42, and was met by thirlc
clouds. He quickly climbed up on the roof, bent over, saw that the
sill was ablaze, and immediately rang the Palace Fire Brigade, who
sent up Fireman Waldemar Maass. Together they first broke a
window and then put out the fire with a hose.

48

THE CRIMINAL CASE

A report of this fire -was published on 27 February :

It has only now become known that a small fire broke out on Saturday
in an office room on the fifth floor of the Berliner Schloss, which was
quickly put out by a fireman stationed on the premises. The origin of
the fire is not yet fully explained. But it is thought to have been an act

One hour before the fire started, the caretaker had made his round
through the Schloss and had even passed through the room. At the
time mere was nothing suspicious to be seen. Soon afterwards the
room was in flames. Investigation showed that there was a burning
firelighter on the window-sill, and another under the window and
also on the steam pipes.
The police investigation has not yet been concluded. 5

The origin of this fire might never have been discovered at all,
had the amateur incendiary, van der Lubbe, not dropped so many
spent matches on the roof, and had he not left the wrappers of his
firelighters lying about.

At the Supreme Court Trial the Assistant Public Prosecutor, Dr
Parrisius, had this to say about the first three fires :

All the evidence suggests that he committed these crimes by liiTnaftlf-
Had they produced the desired effect, the German capital would have
been in a state of frenzied excitement as early as 25 February 193 3 . 6

A comparison of the fires shows that they all had one remarkable
thing in common: all three were started successfully despite the
rather unorthodox methods used, and all three were discovered
more or less by chance.

Next day, on Sunday, 26 February, van der Lubbe walked
through Charlottenburg to Spandau. Shortly before midday, he
watched a Storm Troop demonstration, and also spoke to a
-woman, who took pity on him and offered him some food. After-
wards he went onto Henningsdorf, where he reported his i
to the police in accordance with the Aliens Law. The police then
gave mm shelter for the night a small cell in the ponce-station.
According to the police records, he shared this cell with another
man, to whom we shall return later.

On Monday morning, the two of them -were put out very early,
and were seen to cross doe street to a cafe", where they were given a
free cup of coffee each. It was well before eight o'clock when they
started the march back to Berlin. Marinus arrived in the centre of

49

THB REICHSTAG FIRE

the city at about 12 noon and went to Hermann Stoll's at 48a
Miillerstrasse, where he bought four further packets of firelighters
'with the red flame on the wrapper'. He put one packet each into his
overcoat and coat pockets, and then set off through Chaussee-
strasse, Friedrichstrasse, Unter den Linden, Neue Wilhdmstrasse
and Dorotheenstrasse to the Reichstag where he arrived at about
2 p.m.

Walking round the vast building a number of times, Marinus
discovered that there were quite a few ways of getting in. In the end
he deckled on the western front, because it was the least frequented.
Richard Schmal, a junior official who was just leaving the Reichs-
tag, remembered noticing van der Lubbe there, dressed in shabby
clothes, a peaked cap, and ridiculously short trousers.

Since it was long before nightfall, van der Lubbe walked
through the Tiergarten to the Potsdamer Platz and from there
through the Leipzigerstrasse and the KonigstrassetotheAlexander-
platzPost Office. There he stayed, in the warm, from 3.30 p.m. to
4p.m., while reading some fresh pamphlets he had picked up in the
street. Then he went to the Friedrich Gardens, and returned to the
Reichstag at about 9 pan. On the way he tore the wrappers off the
firelighters, so as not to waste time later. The western front of the
Reichstag was completely deserted. Marinus climbed up the
balustrade to the right of the broad carriageway and expertly
scaled the wall to the first floor. He landed on the balcony in front
of the restaurant, Le. in front of the window nearest the central
portico on the southern side. (He left traces of his climb on the
facade which were subsequently discovered and checked.) On the
balcony, he took a packet oflighters out ofhis pocket and managed
to light it, but only after he had used up half a dozen matches. As
he explained later, he preferred lighting the packet outside in the
strong wind to running the risk ofbeing stopped by someone inside.

At 9.03 p.m. he kicked his foot through a pane 8 mm, thick -
he had to kick more than once - and then dropped into the dark
restaurant. There he flung the lighter, which had started to burn
fiercely, on to a wooden table behind the bar. Then he took a
second packet from his pocket, lit it from the remains of the
first, snatched up the curtains over the door l^rling into the lobby,
and set fire to them. (Both curtains were completely destroyed, and
the wooden door and door-posts -were badly damaged.) Then he
ran back to the curtains over the second window, threw a fire-

50

THE CRIMINAL CASE

lighter on to a table and pulled the bottom of one curtain over it.
Next hie lit part of the third packet of lighters with the remains
of the second, and set fire to the other curtain. Having lit the
rest of the third packet from the burning curtain, he ran to the
Kaiser Ayilbplm monument and, finding nothing combustible
there, he took off his overcoat, coat, sweater and shirt. Using the
last as a firebrand, he doubled back to the restaurant, ran into the
waiters' room to the left of the counter, and pulled a tablecloth
out of a cabinet. He set fire to the tablecloth with his shirt, and ran
down the stairs to the kitchen where he dropped the burning table-
cloth. As he did so, he was startled by a shot outside (the shot fired
by Buwert). Then he set fire to a number of towels in the cloak-
room, and ran up the staircase back to the monument, where he
picked up his coat and sweater, but left his cap, his tie and a piece of
soap, all of which were later collected by Lieutenant Lattit. Near
the door of the Session Chamber, he lit the sweater, and then, ban-
to the waist, raced through the lobby into the western corridor,
saw a wooden panel leaning against a wall and tried to set fire to it.
Next he set fire to a large desk standing between two doors in the
northern corridor, opened the door to the Session Chamber, set
fire to the curtains nearest the Speaker's Chair, tore down the
curtain in the entrance of the stenographers' well, lit it from one of
the other curtains, dragged it to the western corridor and dropped
it. Then he went back to the Speaker's Chair for more burning
material, ran out into the eastern corridor and then some yards
into the southern corridor, where he set fire to a number of other
curtains. At this point he suddenly heard voices, and made for the
Bismarck Hall. On the way he dropped a burning brand which set
fire to a door and a carpet. As he entered the Bismarck Hall, he was
intercepted by Constable Poeschel and by House-Inspector Scrano-
witz.

Van der Lubbe surrendered quite happily, for he knew that his
fourth fire had been a great success. He had shown the German
workers that even one man could strike back at the Hitler regime,
and that is why his answer to Scranowitz's furious 'Why?' was:
*As a protest!'

Van der Lubbe had stampeded through a vast building with such
incredible speed that most people refused to believe his story. But
later, even die most sceptical had to agree that when he was asked
by the Court to reconstruct the crime, while an official clicked a

51

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

stopwatch, he showed that he could, in fact, have been telling the
truth all along.

The fourth fire differed from the other three by only one -
admittedly essential - factor: it was the only one that was not
detected in time, and hence the only one that did serious damage.

THE GREAT QUESTION

All the time van der Lubbe was in the Brandenburg Gate guard-
room, he was surrounded by a wall of uniformed and well-
nourished policemen, who looked on him with a mixture of
curiosity and revulsion. Naturally the first question everyone
wanted to ask him was why he had started the fire, and why in the
Reichstag of all places. Van der Lubbe told them all that he nad not
intended to protest against parliamentary institutions as such, that
he had already set fire to a number of other buildings, and that he
would have set fire to more if he had not been stopped. He men-
tioned the Palace, and also the Cathedral.

When the duty officer, Lieutenant Emil Lateit, returned to the
station a little wmle later, he asked van der Lubbe whether the cap
and tie that had been picked up in the Reichstag were his. Lieu-
tenant Lateit also asked -whether van der Lubbe had really set fire
to the Reichstag all by himself. Van der Lubbe said yes to both
questions. Had he intended to set fire to the Palace and to the
Cathedral as -well? Van der Lubbe said yes again. To Lateit, the
correct Prussian officer, any man who rebelled against order and
discipline, let alone somebody who defied authority by running
about half-naked in mid-winter and setting public buildings on

witz before him and like everyone else after him, he kept on
pressing van der Lubbe for the real' reasons - a question that was
to break van der Lubbe's spirit in the end. As it gradually dawned
on the unfortunate man that his captors, the guardians or the hated
capitalist system, failed to understand him, not because they could
not follow his peculiar German, but because they were quite
incapable of grasping, however vaguely, what was in his mind,
Marinus van der Lubbe lapsed into silence.

Unfortunately, Lateit was as incapable of understanding van der
Lubbe's sudden silence as he had been incapable of understanding
what preceded it. There was only one explanation: the fellow was

52

THE CRIMINAL CASE

no ordinary criminal but an obvious lunatic, one who deliberately
courted notoriety and arrest, and one, what is more, who also
threw his clothes away. Some kind of pyromaniac, no doubt, who
liked to get his name into the papers. Shaking his head, Lateit gave
up, and sent van der Lubbe to police headquarters in the Alex-
anderplatz.

The reader, too, may well shake his head at van dcr Lubbe's
'naive* ideas, though few would care to argue that they were com-
pletely incoherent or senseless - under the prevailing conditions,
they were, in fact, no more 'naive* or 'adventurous* than those of
the Nazis themselves. Ten years earlier, on the night of 8 November
1923, Hitler too had been convinced that his 4 great deed* - the
Munich putsch - would become a signal to all Germany and that
the Weimar Republic would collapse as a result.

There are many other surprising similarities between Hitler and
van der Lubbe. Each -was one of seven children from different
marriages. Both are said to have wanted to enter the ministry, both
lost their fathers early in life - Hitler through death, van der Lubbe
through desertion. Both had ailing mothers who died prematurely.
Hitler was stricken with tuberculosis at sixteen, which changed the
course of his life; van der Lubbe had an accident at sixteen with
similar results. Both vacillated for years, unable to settle down to
anything for long. Both were wild fanatics, and belonged to small
political splinter groups. Both were penniless and spent much of
their time drifting from one casual ward to another. Both had their
heads stuffed with stupendous ideas, and both had nostrums for all
mankind's major ills. Neither finished school; both had excellent
memories and were excellent speakers. Both were avid readers of
Sven Hedin's travel books. Both were too busy with politics and
too poor to have steady girl friends, though neither was sexually
abnormal. Both took political actions which, in the sober light of
day, look like the actions of madmen. Finally^ both Hitler and van
der Lubbe died violent deaths, and saw the collapse of their most
cherished political hopes.

Those who consider this comparison a little too far-fetched
might do well to remember Frederick iTs dictum:

Courage and skill are shared by highwaymen and heroes alike. The
difference is that the hero is a noble and famous robber while the other
is an unknown rogue. One earns laurels and praise for his crimes, the

53

THE REICHSTAG FIKE

THE SORNEWITZ LEGEND

The widespread belief that van der Lubbe had close associations
with National Socialists shortly before the Reichstag fire can be
shown to be the result of deliberate Communist juggling with the
facts. It all started with the following; story, published in the Brown
Book under the heading 'A Guest otthe Nazis' :

On ist and 2nd June (1932) he stayed the night at Sornewitz (Saxony)
where he was seen in company with the load councillor Sommer ana
also Schumann who owned a vegetable garden. Both are National
Socialists. After the Reichstag fire, Councillor Sommer reported van
der Lubbe's visit in 1932 to the Mayor of Brockwitz. This fact was
recorded in a protocol, which was forwarded to the Saxon Ministry
of the Interior, which notified Frick, Reich Minister of the Interior, of
these facts. The facts became public as the result of an interpellation in
the Saxon Diet by a Social Democratic deputy. They have not been
denied by anyone. . . . Councillor Sommer disappeared a short time
after he made the report. 7

What was the basis of all this?

On i June 1932, on his way home from Hungary, van der Lubbe
had asked the Sornewitz parish authorities for permission to spend
the night in the parish shelter. In the morning be left for Dresden,
where his name was duly entered among those who spent the night
of 3 June in the local poorhouse.

We shall see that, after the Reichstag fire, a reward of 20,000
marks was offered, to anyone who could throw further light on van
der Lubbe's 'real* motives and accomplices. Now, when this
matter was discussed at a gathering of welfare officers in Meissen
on 3 March 1933, the Mayor of Sornewitz, Councillor Liebscher,
told the meeting that van der Lubbe's name appeared in the
register of his parish shelter. Franz Lindner, from neighbouring
Brockwitz, then asked whether van der Lubbe was the crook who
had also visited Brockwitz at that time, swindling the local Nazi
leader Oskar Sommer. The man had given out that he was a
National Socialist, and had muttered something about civil war
and rebellion.

At the Supreme Court trial in Leipzig, the resulting comedy of
errors took up so much time that van oer Lubbe, -who in any case
could neither remember Sornewitz nor fathom why they made
such a fuss of his having spent the night there, had his first fit of

54

THE CRIMINAL CASE

laughter. The President and the Chief Public Prosecutor, who
thought that the accused was holding them in contempt, inter-
rupted the trul, to insist on an explanation. Naturally van der
Lubbe found it extremely difficult to explain what he thought of
their ridiculous efforts to reconstruct conversations that he had
forgotten long ago, or of the way in which the Court blew up
trivialities until they assumed quite ridiculous proportions. And
when all this bluster went hand-in-hand with so much pomp and
solemnity, with all the trimmings of German legality, what else
could he do, poor fellow, but burst out laughing in their faces? He
knew that he was no Nazi, had admitted that he had no accom-
plices, and simply could not understand what these ridiculous
bunglers in purple were trying to do to him.

Still, all the Court's lengthy and laborious investigations eventu-
ally bore fruit: it was proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that
the mm who had swindled the Brockwitz Nazi leader could not
have been van der Lubbe. What had happened was that on 7
August 1932, i.e. six weeks after van der Lubbe himself had been
in Saxony, a young man had called on the Nazi Oskar Sommer,
that all his money and his papers had been stolen while

he had taken a swim. He was foolish enough to show Sommer an
envelope with his real name: Wilhelm Barge. As Sommer later
told the Court, Barge kept boasting about his achievements, and
even hinted that he was a member of Hitler's inner circle. Accordr-
ing to Barge the Nazis were planning an armed uprising for
i October and "were quite ready for civil war. Sommer took his
uninvited guest to the local inn, but being slightly suspicious of
him, he asked the local policeman., Max Miersdh, to keep his eye
on the fellow. When Miersch turned up at the inn the next morn-
ing, Barge was still asleep, but half an hour later he disappeared
without a trace. Sommer then lodged an official complaint. In
December 1932, "Wilhelm Barge was sent to prison for nine months
for fraud and forgery.

But before Lindner's vague suspicion that Barge might be
identical with van der Lubbe was finally refuted, the mere sug-
gestion of such a possibility had proved most embarrassing to the
Nazis, particularly after it was seized upon by their enemies.

When the Mayor of Brockwitz, Bruno Keil, first heard about
Lindner's suspicions, he immediately summoned Sommer who,
astonished though he was, admitted that Lindner might possibly

55

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

be right. KeU picked up the telephone and reported the whole
thing to the Chief Magistrate in Meissen, who in turn notified
the Reichstag deputy Dobbert. Dobbert then rang up the Saxon
Minister of the Interior, and also sent a telegram to the Public
Prosecutor in Leipzig. The telegram, dated 4 March 1933, read as
follows:

Reichstag Incendiary Marinus van der Lubbe stayed night of i June
1932 in S6rnewitz as recorded in night register. Pkyed National
Socialist to leading National Socialists in Brockwitz, viz. Councillor
Sommer and nurseryman Schumann. Entertained by Councillor
Sommer and disappeared. Told Sommer Germany on eve of civil war,
but that National Socialist Party fully prepared.

When Dobbert's telegram was forwarded to the Examining
Magistrate, Judge Vogt, in Berlin, Vogt promptly dispatched his
assistant, Dr Werneckc, to Brockwitz. It did not take Wernecke
long to discover that the whole story was based on an almost
incredible combination of errors and confusions.

THE MOST SHAMEFUL LIE OF ALL

Far more scandalous still was the Brown Book lie that Marinus was
a homosexual. This is what the Red Book had to say on that subject :

When, in their account of Marinus's youth, they come to his twelfth
year or so, these red gentry begin to nint that Marinus was a strange
sort of fellow, so strange, in fact, that he was certain to turn into a
homosexual . The victim gets his first jab on page 46 of the Brown
Book:

'[His comrades] also tease him on account of his fear of girls. This
characteristic was so strong and so obvious that his former classmates
talk about it to this day. He simply could not be made to consort with
any girls, but found his love among schoolboys and other boys of bis

The second injection -with homosexuality germs comes on
^age 47=

It was all the more inexplicable to the builders' apprentices, with
whom he was working, why Marinus van der Lubbe was so afraid of
women.'

It would take us too far afield to refute the Brown Book story of van
der Lubbe's youth point by point. We shall therefore single out the

56

THE CRIMINAL CASE

lie that he was a homosexual, a lie that becomes the more brazen,
the closer the Brown Book comes to Marinus's so-called 'experiences'
with Dr Bell.

The Red Book then looks at the Broum Book story that '. . . Lzak
Vink told our reporter that he often shared a bed with van der
Lubbe', and points out that though Vink said just that, he also
added: '. . . without my ever noticing the slightest homosexual
tendencies', a phrase which the Brown Book conveniently forgot to
repeat.

Unlike the Broum Book, in which the tnajn allegations were
anonymous, Le. completely uncorroborated, the Red Book pub-
lished signed statements by many people who had known Marinus
in Leyden. All were agreed that they had never noticed the slightest
homosexual tendencies in him-

The Brown Book's prize exhibit was provided by a Herr 'W.S.',
the 'friend of Dr BelT. This Dr Bell, a shady international adven-
turer, was alleged to have kept a list of all the boys whom he
procured for his friend Rohm, the notorious Storm Troop Chief
of Staff. Herr 'W.S.' had this to say:

If I remember rightly, it was in May 1931 that Bell told me he met a
young Dutch -worker who mod* a very good impression on Tii-m, Bell
was out in his car near Berlin or Potsdam, when he met a hiker, and
offered him a lift. The hiker was a young Dutch workman, and he
visited Bell later in Munich. Bell called him Renus or Rinus. He had
frequent meetings with him- . . .

Dr Bell fetched a number of papers from a secret cabinet. He pointed
to a sheet and said : This is Rfthm's love-list. Ifl ever publish it, Rohm
is a dead maty* He showed me die list, 'which contained some thirty
namiM; i remember very well that one of them was Rinus followed by
a Dutch name beginning with 'van der 9 . 8

'Unfortunately/ the Brown Book continued, 'this love-list was
taken away by the Storm Troopers who murdered Bell near
Kufstein.'

It is typical that this Worn statement of Herr W.S.' published
in the Brown Book, differs in many respects from the testimony
'Herr W.S.' gave at the London 'Counter-Trial', and which was
reported in Het Volk on 16 September 1933. According to that
testimony, Bell's list consisted exclusively of Christian names, with
only one exception which, as the reader will have guessed, was

57

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

none other than: 'Marinus van der . . . and then one or two letters
which I could not quite make out : S, T, L, or H and then . . . ubbe,
and Holland. 9
The Red Book rightly scoffed :

Warn' t it clever ofDr Bell, to write the name of van der Lubbe out in
fall, when all the other entries were Christian names or nirlrnamrx, and
even to add his country of origin! Obviously, the Germans must by
then have grown so super-patriotic that they insisted on distinguishing
between local homosexuals and alien imports.

The Brown Book also had other homosexual aces up its sleeve.
Thus it claimed that:

When van der Lubbe returned to Leyden in January or February
1932, he had a great deal to tell his friends about his tour. He claimed
that he met a young journeyman whose sister worked in a Budapest
brothdL Marinus van der Lubbe maAf^. t known that he baH decided, to
save this girL At her insistence he had spent one night with her but
without touching her. This behaviour is so typical ofnomosexuals that
Freud has called it the 'Parsifid-complex'. 9

The reply of the Red Book was :

If it is written in the Brown Book, so famed for its clarity and honesty,
then, of course, it simply must be true. Particularly when its authority
is propped up with Professor Freud's. However, the Brown Book
might have added that - again according to Professor Freud - this
'complex* is found among heterosexual mgn, as well. 1

During his travels in Europe, Marinus van der Lubbe had many
clashes with the police. All bis convictions are known, and it
appears that, though male homosexuality is an offence in most
European countries - with the notable exception of Holland - no
charge sheet contains so much as a hint that he was ever suspected
of being an invert. And yet, had he been a homosexual as well as a
'penniless vagrant* he would surely have tried to solicit male
customers wherever he went.

3. The Police Investigation

THE FINAL REPORT

DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR Dr Walter Zirpins submitted his final
report on the Reichstag fire on 3 March 1933. In Section C, he
posed and answered a crucial question, when he said:

There is no doubt that van der Lubbe committed the crime entirely
by Viimatflf- This conclusion follows from the investigations, the
objective facts, and the precise answers of the suspect.

In support of this view, which refuted the Nazi story of Com-
munist complicity and hence was bound to earn him Government
hostility, Dr Zirpins adduced the following facts:

The scene of the crime and his activities there were described by van
der Lubbe light from the start [Le. before the official reconstruction of
the crime on the spot] in such detail seats of fire, damage caused,
trails left, and paths fc>V^n as only the incendiary himself could have
supplied. Had he not been there himself, he could not possibly have
described, and later demonstrated on die spot, all these facts and
peciaUyttesmaUcrfireswHchhehadUtatrandonx
The reconstruction of the crime proved that all the details he gave
were absolutely correct.

So accurate were van der Lubbe's descriptions and sketches that
the astonished detectives were quite unable to catch him out in a
single error or omission. Had there been accomplices, some signs
of their presence would most certainly have come to liglit-

On 27 September 1933, when Dr Zirpins gave evidence before
the Supreme Court, and hence before all the world, Torgler's
counsel, Dr Sack, asked him to tell the Court why, in his final
report, he felt so certain that van der Lubbe must have been the sole
culprit.

Dr Zirpins's reply was:

The method used was the same with all three fires. Marinus van der
Lubbe has, as I have said, given us a signed statement, ^plaining the

59

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

whole matter. I believe - no, I am convinced - that he did it all by

Now, the very feet that all those of van der Lubbe's statements
which were verifiable proved to have been absolutely correct
ought to have suggested to the worthy detective that van der Lubbe
might also be speaking the truth about his motives. However, Dr
Zirpins's objectivity did not stretch, so far. Thus, in the last section
of his report, he felt impelled to leave the safe foothold of estab-
lished fact for the ahifHng sands of speculation, that is for the
allegation that van der Lubbe had acted on the instructions of the
German Communist Party. He based this allegation on the follow-
ing 'evidence' :

During the police investigations he kept trying to develop his
Communist ideas, so that it was only with great difficulty and after
hours of conversation that we managed to get down to the real
business.

And this was all the 'evidence* the police could muster to prove
the story that van der Lubbe was a tool of the Communists. Oddly
enough therefore, this slander, which the Communists soon turned
against the Nazis, was not started by the National Socialists them-
selves, but by Zirpins, a police officer of the old school, one who at
no time belonged to the Nazi Party. It was this man who said of
van der Lubbe:

A man who is willing to carry out revolutionary intrigues on his own
account is just what the Communist Party needs. In the Party's hands,
van der Lubbe became a willing tool, one -who, while believing he was
shifting for himself, was being shifted from behind the scenes. No
wonder then that the Communist Party was so delighted to use him,
particularly since they knew that they would be able to wash their
hands of him completely.

And Zirpins added with quite remarkable assurance :

The strong suspicion that van der Lubbe acted on the orders of
Communist leaders, is confirmed by unequivocal facts.

And what precisely were these 'unequivocal* facts? One was that
van der Lubbe had made 'contact', not with the Communist Party
but *. . . with workmen in Welfare Offices, at meetings, etc., where
he started discussions with them ---- '

Another 'unequivocal' fact was that *. . . on his arrest he was
found to carry the appended Communist leaflets in his pocket.'

60

THE CRIMINAL CASE

The third fact was even more 'unequivocal': 'When, after the
interrogation on 2 March, he was taken back to the cells at 6 p.m.,
he promised cheerfully to deliver a stirring Communist speech to
the Supreme Court.'

Then there came an 'unequivocal* incrimination of the Com-
munist Party leadership;

There is a great deal of circumstantial evidence to show that Com-
munist deputies were the instigators of the crime, and especially the
Deputies Torgler and Kocnen, who in recent times used every
conceivable occasion as an excuse for unusually frequent meetings in
the Reichstag.

Quite apart from the fact that no evidence was produced to show
that the two men used 'every conceivable occasion 9 for 'unusually
frequent* meetings in the Reichstag, the feet that the President of
the Communist Diet faction met the President of the Com-
munist Reichstag faction in what, after the closure of the Karl
liebknecht House, remained their last legal refuge, was neither
remarkable nor in any way suspicious, particularly at a time when
a general election was being fought. No wonder that in all subse-
quent hearings these 'facts' were never mentioned again.

It was their Communist plot theory which encouraged the police
to ignore the Criminal Procedure Code, and to allow hostile
witnesses to have a good look at van der Lubbe first, and to
'describe' him afterwards. Their subsequent statements enabled

Tiirpins fo rlaim ;

Three eye-witnesses saw van der Lubbe in the company of Torgler
and Koenen before the fire. In view of van der Lubbe's striking
appearance, it is impossible for all three to have been wrong.

Although police reports 'must restrict themselves to the estab-
lished facts', Dr Zirpins's report continued:

Witnesses who were in the vicinity of the Reichstag at the time,
noticed a suspicious person fleeing the building during the fire.
It seems likely that *ni person, wnose identity remains unknown,
was one of tine principals keeping an eye on the progress of the
crime.

Another bit of 'corroborative* evidence quoted by Zirpins was
the folio wing:

61

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

On 17 February 193 3, a Russian was seen

company of two Dutchmen, to whom he handed bundles of bank-

notes vmAff suspicious circumstances.

Zirpins considered this last bit of 'evidence' so important that
he quoted its sources in full:

We, the undersigned

1. PaulMerten

2. WaltherArlt

maW the following statement !

A week ago we reported that on Friday , February lyth, 193 3, between
ii p.m. and 11.30 p.m. we saw a Russian handing four bundles of
banknotes to two Dutchmen in the Potsdamer Plate behind the news-
paper kiosk (Post Office side).

We inferred the Dutch nationality of the two men from die fact
that the word 'van* cropped up a number of times. The conversation
was carried on softly in German, and we heard nothing of the subject
matter the men were discussing. We did, however, watch the men
and saw that they entered die Cafe* Vatrrland. . . .We also noticed that,
as the Russian took the money from his coat pocket, he accidentally
dropped a piece of paper. We picked it up later and made out a series
of numbers, strokes, dots and punctuation marks. We handed this
piece of paper over to the police. 1

During the identity parade which was arranged at once, the two
witnesses were unable to recognize van der Lubbe. He himself had
this to say:

I am further told that on February lyth, 193 3, a Russian was observed
on the Potsdaxner Plate handing [four bundles of banknotes] to two
Dutchmen under suspicious circumstances. I myself did not arrive in
Berlin until February iStih, 1933, and could obviously not have been
there. I know no Dutchmen in Berlin, and have no acquaintances here.

Was Dr Zirpins dismayed? By no means ! For this was his incredible
conclusion:

Even though it has been established that van der Lubbe was not in
Berlin on February lyth, 1933, and certainly not at the rf* in

question - about 11 p.m., it nevertheless remains quite possible that
these men were sent from Holland to pave the way for him.

The whole thing smacks of Gilbert and Sullivan, and not of a
serious police investigation, particularly since the invcstigator-in-

62

THE CRIMINAL CASE

chiefhimselfhad only just stated that van der Lubbe had committed
the crime without any assistance.

Further 'evidence* adduced by Zirpins was an unsigned news-

Although even this article did nothing to prove the com-
plicity of the other accused, Zirpins nevertheless used it against
them. The article stated, inter alia, that:

Tn the opinion of the Dutch police, the crime is undoubtedly the first
of a series of individual outrages instigated by Moscow against Fascist
Germany. These individual outrages are meant as substitutes for die
old Communist method of starting riots, since, because of recent
police measures, no great store can be set by mass actions.

Of similar validity was the next bit of 'incriminating* evidence,
viz. the testimony of the ex-convict Otto Kunzack, a man whom
the Supreme Court later described as an inveterate liar and in-
former. Yet this liar's statement was deemed worthy ofbeing given
great prominence in Zirpins' s final report, where we can read:

I knew van der Lubbe, the Reichstag incendiary, personally. He
received his instructions from Cologne and Dusscldorfl Similar
instructions -were also received by landtag Deputy KerfF, formerly a
teacher in Cologne, and by oneJoscfWinterlicn of Cologne.

As further evidence, Zirpins quoted a Nationalist press report
^ll^ging that the Communist Deputy Schumann had spoken of
the Reichstag fire well before 8 p.m. on the eve of the fire. As it
turned out, Schumann did not make die alleged remarks until after
he had heard the ten o'clock news.

Yet all these bits of evidence which, taken singly or collectively,
proved absolutely nothing, -were deemed sufficient reason by
Zirpins for '. . . suspecting that van der Lubbe acted on the orders
of the Communist Party .

Eighteen years later, Dr Walter Zirpins, now a senior Civil
Servant, had this to say about his former theory:

The question whether or not van der Lubbe acted under orders had to
be left open by nn^ since my instructions were simply to examine van
der Lubbe. Subsequently I have become firmly convinced that van der
Lubbe had no principals. 1

Had Dr Zirpins paused to reflect at the time, he would surely
have reached the same conclusion much earlier. For when all is

63

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

said and done, the very last thing German Communists wanted
was to burn down their only remaining refuge in Berlin.

However, Zirpins's contentious and far-fetched conclusion,
which earned him some ridicule even during the trial, was, in fact,
just -what Hitler needed in order to proscribe the Communist Party
and to pour his brown hordes into die streets. That is, of course, the
real reason why the story of van der Lubbe* s untrustworthiness
found its way into Zirpins's police report, whence it was handed
on to the Examining Magistrate, the medical experts, the fire-ex-
perts, the Public Prosecutor, and finally the Supreme Court judges.

JMarinus van der Lubbe was committed for trial on the very day
Inspector Zirpins published his report, and the case passed out of
the hands of the police into those of Judge Vogt, the Examining
Magistrate attached to the Supreme Court.

As one more astonishing example of the lengths to which the
authorities -were prepared to go to produce Communist 'accom-
plices', we need only tell the following story:

On the night of the fire, a large police force combed every con-
ceivable nook and cranny of the Reichstag building for the alleged
accomplices, and for any dues they might have left behind. All the
policemen could discover, however, was the presence of some
mysterious white crystals on the floor of one ot Torgler's rooms.
The crystals were carefully gathered up and rushed to the Prussian
Institute for Food, Drugs and Forensic Chemistry. Its director,
Professor Dr August Bruning (now at Munster University) carried
out an analysis and reported bis findings to the Police President
with all the pomp and circumstance demanded by the occasion.
The conspiratorial particles were - granulated sugar.

HEISIG' S INVESTIGATIONS IN HOLLAND

On 4 March 1933 Inspector Heisig was sent to Holland by his
dhie Rudolf Diels, with instructions to gather what evidence he
could on van der Lubbe's background.

As Heisig told the Supreme Court on 29 September 1933, the
Dutch authorities proved extremely helpful. He was able to speak
to many of van der Lubbe's friends and acquaintances, mrlmlitig
Piet van Albada, Jacob (Koos) Virile, the mayor of Oegsgeest, and
Marinus's former teacher, van der Meene.

64

THE CRIMINAL CASE

Albada, in particular, was concerned to defend his friend against
Communist slanders, though, had he known with what disastrous
results, he might not have said such things as:

I have known van der Lubbe since about autumn 1929. 1 met frim in
the Dutch Communist Party. In the Party he gained his reputation by
the work he did for the Young Communist League. In any case, even
before he moved in with me, he was an exceptionally active member
of the League. In the CPH [Communist Party of Holland] he
attracted attention through discussions, lectures, and above all
through his Communist work among the unemployed. The Party
soon noticed his considerable influence among the unemployed, and
entrusted him with ever more important tasks among them. 8

Such explanations, far from vindicating van der Lubbe, merely
confirmed Heisig's belief that Marinus was a Communist stooge
and so, of course, did the following:

After I left the CPH I became convinced that van der Lubbe was just
the man the Party would use for special actions. He was always willing
to start an agitation, without asking whether it had any chance of
success or not.

When I realized how the Party misused him, how they sent him
into battle while they themselves remained safely in the background,
and also that van der Lubbe was too decent to put any blame on the
Party , I tried to make the whole thing clear to him and to gain him for
my International Communist ideas. "Whifo he sympathized, he
nevertheless refused to join us.

Once again, Albada had painted a picture of a zealot who would
shield his so-called friends at any cost to himself. But Albada dealt
Marinus an even worse blow when he went on to say:

I know that the Party asked van der Lubbe to resign in case they were
blamed for his activities. I have heard it said that the CP H has put van
der Lubbe *on ice*. But I know that he is still doing work for the Party,
although not to the same extent as before.

With that statement Albada had completely discredited van der
Lubbe's own statement and that of the Dutch police, namely that
van der Lubbe had resigned from the Cknmnunist Party in 1929-31.

On 10 March 1933 van der Lubbe's friend Koos Vink made a
similar statement, no doubt with the same good intentions, and
with the same devastating results:

65

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

IamamcmberofdieCPH,MarinusvanderLubbeisoncofm^
friends. Marinus van der Lubbe was a very hard-working and keen
Communist and was very much respected in the Party. He frequently
organized Communist meetings, at "which lie was a prominent
speaker. He exerted a great deal of influence on the unemployed in
Ley den; whatever he said always went down well with them and was
done.

At the end of September 193 3 , when Heisig gave evidence on his
investigations in Holland to the Supreme Court, and -when the
world press published bis statement, the Communist Party put
strong pressure on Albada and Vink, no doubt by tilling them that
their testimony might send van der Lubbe to the scaffold. As a
result, Albada and Vink immediately retracted their statements,
and the Communists were able to gloat :

No sooner was Heisig's evidence given than van Albada and Vink
publicly protested. It appeared that not only had Heisig completely
changed their statements but that he had included in them parts
entirely of his own invention. 4

Towards the end of his stay in Holland, the Chief of the
police invited Heisig to hold a press conference which had
requested by a number of Dutch journalists. On this occasion,- too,
there were many questions about van der Lubbe's mysterious
backers or accomplices. Now, had Heisig in fact been the Nazi
hireling the Communists said he was, he could have hedged by
rlaiming that the matter was subjudice, and thus have earned the
gratitude of Goring and his other superiors. Instead, he gave what,
in the circumstances, could only have been his honest opinion. This
is how the Dutch press reported him next morning:

By treating him [van der Lubbe] considerately and by letting him feel
that he would oe deemed innocent until proved otherwise, the
German authorities managed to get along with him extremely well
. . . Heir Heisig had the impression that van der Lubbe was being
absolutely honest. . . . Though van der Lubbe lacked intellectual
training, he proved exceptionally keen and shrewd whenever the
discussion turned to anything he was particularly interested in. The
German police officer was struck most of all by van der Lubbe's
highly developed sense of direction. He knew Berlin almost as well as
the inspector himself^ and described his race through the Reichstag in
every last detail . . .
Herr Heisig was asked whether the fire might not have been started

66

THE CRIMINAL CASE

by political opponents of the Communist Party, and whether the
police had not simply let the real culprits escape. That was all a lie, was
tVift forthright answer of the German policeman* It was absolutely
impossible for any accomplices to have escaped. In Herr Heisig s
opinion, van dcr Lubbe had started the fire entirely by himself. 5

This surprising opinion of someone in Heisig's position caused a
tremendous stir in the Dutch, press, for Heisig, who had been on the
case from the start, and who ought to have known the facts better
than anyone else, had denied the official German view that van der
Lubbe had had countless Communist accomplices. The reper-
cussions were fast, furious, and quite predictable: the

ate, Judge Vogt, ordered Heisig to return immediately,
he himsellpublished the following 'correction' in the official
Government newspaper:

Various newspapers have alleged that the Communist van der Lubbe

hurngd tbfi Rfiirhstag by himself. In fart, the report fifths P.ya mining

Magistrate shows there is good reason to believe that van der Lubbe
jjj not act on hi own. For the time, being, all details must be with-
held in the public interest.*

The Red Book rightly suspected that it was

. . . probably not too sweeping an assumption that he (Heisig) was
taken severely to task by his superiors for the careless views he had
expressed. For how could they continue to hold the four Communists,
once the inspector in charge of the investigation had himself declared
that van der Lubbe was the sole culprit? 7

In feet, Heisig "was told by Judge Vogt that his press conference
had helped to discredit not only die preliminary investigation but
also the policies of the Third Reich. Accordingly, Judge Vogt
made it known that all future press communiques would be issued
by him alone.

As Heisig spent d*& rest of his life widcr the spell of the Reichstag
fire, we shall tell his story in brie

After the events we nave described, Heisig left Berlin, shortly
before Division IA changed its name to Gestapo. As a petty official,
and one who was politically 'unreliable' to boot, Heisig was careful
to keep bis mouth shut, which he found the easier to do in that no
one would have believed him in any case: the Nazis because they

6?

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

were absolutely convinced of the guilt of the Communists; the
Communists because they were as firmly convinced of the guilt of
the Nazis.

Heisig took the first chance he had of resigning from the Prussian
Police, and on I January 1934 became head of me Criminal Police
in Dessau.

But even in. the provinces he quickly got into hot water because of
his political reticence which, under the Nazis, was bound to attract
attention. His personal file which, it must be remembered, was
compiled long before anyone thought of the possibility of denazi-
fication, contains the following statement:

On January ist, 1934, 1 took charge of the Criminal Police in Dessau
(Anhalt), and on September ist, 1934, 1 was appointed Chief Criminal
Inspector.

At the end of March 1936, 1 was accused of disrespect towards the
local district leader of the National Socialist Party and was suspended
on half pay.

The Special Court in Halle referred my case to the District Court in
Dessau which imposed a fine of 200 marks (or forty days) with the
explanation that the status of the accused called for severe punishment.

At the beginning of May 1945, Heisig, who had meanwhile been
promoted to the rank of Superintendent, was taken to the Regens-
burg Labour Camp by the Allies, Here he shared a cell with a
particularly notorious prisoner, the former Chancellor, Franz von
Papen. During their conversations Heisig told von Papen that, in
his opinion:

Van der Lubbe had fired the building, not at the instigation either of
the Communists or of the Nazis, but on his own initiative. He had
already attempted to burn the SchSneberg Town Hall, the Neukdlln
Welfare Office and the Berlin Palace. 8

After Heisig' s release from the internment camp, he ran into
fresh difficulties. At the rime of van der Lubbe's arrest in the Reichs-
tag, Constable Poeschd had cursorily searched van der Lubbe
without spotting a Communist pamphlet which was found on the
Dutchman after a more thorough search in the police station. This
- 'Towards a United Front of Action* ! - was later
as evidence that van der Lubbe was a Communist
'54).
When Poeschel, who knew nothing about this completely un-

68

THE CRIMINAL CASE

important pamphlet, was asked about it during the trial, he was
afraid to admit that he had overlooked anything, though no one
would have blamed him if he had. He insisted blandly that, if he
had not found the pamphlet at the time, then no pamphlet could
have been there. In the end, the Court forced him to concede that
'perhaps it might have been there all the same*.

Now, in 1936 a former National Socialist and leader of the
'National Front against Bolshevist Excesses', Walther Korodi, who
had left Berlin for Switzerland in 1935, published an anonymous
article in which he alleged that Heisig had planted the pamphlet
on van der Lubbe in order to prove his Communist connections.
Though Heisig protested his innocence, which ought to have been
dear from his record anyway, Communists made this slander the
excuse for a vicious campaign against him in 1948, just after he had
been released from the internment camp. One pamphlet called
Viim a perjurer, adding that 'the whole story of the pamphlet
-was manufactured by the political police, and above all by Inspector
Heisig'. 9

As a result, Heisig was accused of complicity in the Reichstag fire
and re-arrested. And so we have come lull circle: Helmut Heisig,
who had steadfastly opposed the Nazi thesis of Communist com-
plicity at no small risk to himself, was now indicted as an accom-
plice by the very Communists he had tried to exonerate.

When he was first interned in May 1945, Heisig was already a
broken and ailing man. The camp and the odious attacks by the
Communists did the rest. After his final release he found that many
of his former colleagues, who had shown themselves far more
receptive to Nazi demands, had been reinstated long ago. On 23
August 1954, just before he, too, was due to be 'rehabilitated* at
last, Heisig was killed in an accident.

In Brown Book II, Heisig is described as 'one of the confidants of
the National-Socialist Party in the Berlin police headquarters',
whose function it was 'to furnish convincing proofs of the guilt of
the Communists'. It was further alleged that Heisig's interrogation
of van der Lubbe was so irregular and that the record of it proved
so embarrassing that '. . . from the beginning to the end of the
trial the alleged statement was neither read nor shown to any of
the other accused.'

Now, the authors of the Broom Book, who were apparently not

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

familiar with the German criminal code, assumed that the state-
ment must have disappeared simply because it was not read out
in Court. However, according to German kw, the Court is not
entitled to consult police or other preliminary records, except in
very special circumstances. Only direct evidence given in Court is
considered, admissible evidence.

But, in any case, the authors of the Brown Book knew perfectly
well that the police records had not disappeared. In particular, they
knew, or ought to have known from the Notes of Evidence, which
they analysed with so much skill, that depositions made both to
the police 3Ild to th^ Tkratninjng Magistrate were read out in CJQiirf ,

the moment van der Lubbe decided not to answer any more
questions. Thus on 27 September 1933, the Presiding Judge, Dr
Biinger, turned to Heisig with:

I should like to recall to you the order in which your questions were
put. You first asked what time it was when he [van der Lubbe] arrived
at the Welfare Office. You recorded the answer : At 6.3 o p.m.

Later, Dr Biinger told Heisig's colleague, Dr Zirpins:

Now I shall tell you which interrogation we are concerned with - the
one that tookplace on February 28th - probably well after midnight,
was it not? This interrogation is incorporated in Prel. Exam. VoL I,
page 59. Did it take place early in the morning?

Dr Zirpins replied:

Yes, it was in the morning. Herr Heisig had interrogated hi f or
two hours during the night. . . .

The depositions 'were further referred to on the 52nd day of the
trial, ie. on 6 December 1933. On that day Judge Rusch dealt with
Dimitrov's request to be informed of what van der Lubbe had told
the police about his (van der Lubbe's) alleged membership of the
Dutch Communist Party. Judge Rusch said:

As is generally known, the first interrogation was carried out by
Inspector Heisig on the night of February 27th. The matter is
reported in the form of questions and answers in Pre I Exam. VoL V,
page 48.

THE CRIMINAL CASB

HITLER'S 'OVERSIGHT*

Hitler and his henchmen worked themselves into a lather of fury
about van der Lubbe when really they ought to have been more
than grateful to him. For was it not thanks to van der Lubbe's ill-
considered action that they were given the chance of seizing power?
Yet Goring, for instance, in his evidence to the Supreme Court on
4 November 1933 explained that the only reason he had refrained
from 'making an example 9 of van der Lubbe was that he had hoped
to catch the accomplices.

The others are by far the worst/ he added.

hat-Icing Viable tn tVife theme , particularly when

world opinion laid the crime at his, or rather at Goring's, door. At a
Cabinet Meeting held on 2 March 1933, Hitler explained that 'all
these calumnies would have been stopped at source had the
criminal been hanged on the spot 9 .

The subject was discussed again at the Cabinet Meeting of
7 March 1933 when Prick, the Minister of the Interior, argued that
van der Lubbe should be hanged on the Konigsplatz at once. Hitler
concurred, and took the opportunity to deliver a harangue against
those to whom nothing mattered except keeping to the letter of
the law.

In his official address to the new Reichstag, on 3 March 1933,
Hitler brought the matter up once again:

The fact that a certain section of the press, particularly outside the
German Reich, tries to couple the national resurrection of Germany
with this evil deed, confirms my decision to wipe out the crime witn
the speedy public execution of the incendiary and his accomplices.
(Loud applause from the National Socialist benches and the public.) 10

Next day Hitler had an unpleasant surprise, for when Minister
Frick demanded the death sentence for van der Lubbe in the
Cabinet, Presidential Secretary Meissner told him: Cl The Reich
President [von Hindenburg] continues to have strong reservations
about signing an order for die public execution of van der Lubbe. 9

After this rebuff the President delivered an even more serious
blow to 'that foreigner Hitler', when he said : "The Reich President
believes most strongly that public executions are not in keeping
with German sentiments or with German history/

After that, Hitler could not but proclaim that '. . . these views

71

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

of the Reich President are naturally binding on the Cabinet'. 11
Eight years later, Hitler was still fuming about it all:

Marinus van der Lubbe, the man who started the fire, ought to have
been hanged within three days, if only because he was seen carrying a
parcel from Torgler's house on the day of the fire. Had we made short
shrift of him, we should also have been able to convict the real
instigator, Dimitrov, who is now the head of the GPU in the Soviet
Union. 18

Today there seems little doubt that it was precisely by allowing
van der Lubbe to stand trial that the Nazis proved their innocence
of the Reichstag fire. For had van der Lubbe been associated with
them in any way, the Nazis would have shot him the moment he
had done their dirty work, blaming his death on an outbreak of
'understandable popular indignation 9 . Van der Lubbe could then
have been branded a Communist without the irritations of a public
trial, and foreign critics would not have been able to argue that,
since no Communist accomplices were discovered, the real accom-
plices must be sought on the Government benches.

4. Wallet's Building

THE 'SYMBOL OF THE WEIM'AR REPUBLIC 5

MOST post-war accounts of the Reichstag fire repeat the legend
that by destroying the Reichstag the incendiary or incendiaries
intended to destroy the visible 'symbol' of German democracy -
not only Parliament but parliamentary government as welL

Is it true to say, then, that the Reichstag building was the 'symbol'
of German democracy? Was it really the embodiment of the demo-
cratic ideal of the Weimar Republic?

It is often forgotten that the unwieldy building on the Konigs-
platz was completed a quarter of a century before the young
Weimar Republic moved in. Its architect, Paul Wallot, had
worked away at it for ten long years - from 1884 to 1894 - a *
a cost to his country of 87 million gold marks. "When he was
finished, he had created a poor imitation of the Brussels Palace
of Justice.

Its bombastic Prussian pomp, the banality of its sculptures, the
dash of styles, were such that, immediately after the opening, voices
began to clamour for the demolition squad, and for a new building
more in keeping with the spirit and the needs of a modern state.
Quite apart from the aesthetic aspects, the Reichstag's impressive
facade soon proved to cover up a host of annoying shortcomings.
For one thing, the mammoth structure was exceedingly short of
working space, most of which had been wasted on display.

In order to remedy this glaring fault, the German Government
offered a prize in 1929 for the best plan of rebuilding the Reichstag.
However, all the entries had to be rejected - no satisfactory
solution could be found. The deputies shrugged their shoulders,
and forgot the whole business, particularly since Germany had
come to feel the depression and no one could be bothered with
parliamentary building experiments.

But it was not only architects who detested the building. Thus
the former Minister of Justice, Gustav Radbruch, has said:

I have occasionally called the Reichstag *a house without any weather*

73

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

... for - no matter what the weather was outside, inside there was
never anything but the insipid light of a cloudy sky.

I am convinced that the excitability of the deputies . . . was based
to some extent on the monstrous structure of the Reichstag. 1

This so-called 'excitability of the deputies' was a reference to the
many shameful scuffles by which German democracy was so often
and so publicly degraded.

The ugliness of the Reichstag must have cushioned the blow of
its destruction quite considerably. Thus when the Minister of
Finance, Count Schwerin von Krosigk, -was told about the fire he
rejoiced at the fact that it was not a 'valuable monument'. The
Nazi press officer, Dr Ernst Hanfstaengl, called the building a
horror. The last Speaker of the Reichstag, Hermann Goring, said
on many occasions that, though he bore no responsibility tor the
fire, he had no artistic objections to its results. On 13 October 1945
he astonished an American officer when, having emphatically
denied his complicity in the Reichstag fire, he added that he himself
would have burned the Reichstag for quite different reasons -
simply '. . . because the large Session Chamber was so hideous, and
because it had plaster walls. . . .**

Before the Nuremberg Tribunal Goring also insisted that:

There was no reason at all why I should have set the Reichstag on fire.
True, from the artistic point of view I have no regrets that the
Chamber was destroyed; I hoped to build a better one. 8

The Reichstag building covered some two and three-quarter
acres and was built of gigantic sandstone blocks. It faced true west,
its road frontage was about 460 feet, and its central depth some 330
feet. Each corner had a tower, some 130 feet high. Right in the
centre rose a gigantic glass cupola, which Berliners called the big-
gest round cheese in Europe; above it, rising almost 250 feet from
the ground, shone a golden crown. From the Konigsplatz which,
at the time of the Weimar Republic, was turned into the Plate der
Republik, a large flight of stairs led through the Main Entrance
(Portal One) to the main floor. Beneath it ky the ground floor, the
cellar, and two intermediate storeys, above it were two upper
floors.

The main floor contained the Chamber, measuring some 95 feet
by 72 feet. The three-tiered tribune (the Speaker's Chair above ; the
Orator's Table in the middle; and the stenographers' table below)

74

THE CRIMINAL CASE

faced the 600-700 deputies' seats, arranged in semicircles and
divided into seven sectors. Successive rows were raised, in the
rnatinrr of an amphitheatre. Opposite the tribune was the public
gallery, with the press box, the former royal box, and the diplo-
matic box to the right. Daylight had to pass through the glass
cupola and a glass ceiling, and was extremely faint by the time it
reached the seats.

All the walls of the Chamber were richly panelled, and the
panelling behind the tribune was lavishly hung with costly
tapestries. In addition, there was a vast quantity of wood in the
form of parapets, pillars, staircases, carvings, seats and desks. There
were seven wooden doors, including a number of swinging doors.
The stenographers' table stood in a well in the floor, which was
reached by a small staircase, and had two doors of its own.

It was only because of the glass dome that the rest of the building
was saved from destruction. For when the dome cracked, a natural
chimney was formed, which sucked up all the flames and prevented
the fire from spreading out.

This explains why the Session Chamber was 'cut out of the
building by the fire as neatly as the stone from a peach' (Douglas
Reed, The Burning of the Reichstag, p. 17), a fact which the former
Reichstag President, Paul Lobe, was quite wrong to consider
'suspicious'.*

When the Brown Book alleged that the incendiaries - led by
S.A. Colonel Heines with van der Lubbe 'fifth or sixth in line' -
had entered the building through an 'underground passage', they
started a rumour which grew as it fed on people's love of mystery
and fable. In feet, the Reichstag tunnel was anything but mys-
terious : a tube six feet in diameter running some 450 feet from the
Reichstag cellar to tihte boiler room on the Reichstag embankment.
Wallot had placed the boilers at that distance from the main build-
ing 'in order that there should be no source of fire within Parlia-
ment itself, and had built the passage to carry the steam pipes
across.

We know from Gustav Regler, an ex-Communist, how the
Broum Book got hold of the plans of the Reichstag. With great (and
quite unnecessary) secrecy, Regler copied the plans in the Stras-
bourg National Library - from Paul Wallot's Das Reichstagsge-
bdude in Berlin (Leipzig, 1899) and then offered them over the tele-
phone to Willi Munjzenberg, the leader of 'Agitprop' (Communist

75

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Agitation and Propaganda Department), who had fled from Berlin
to Paris.

I explained my idea, and he grasped the importance of the documents
at once. . . . A new publishing house would be founded, nBrownBook
was to be published, and I, of course, would be expected to take part.
The whole wodd would be aroused. 'Don't worry about money,
bring all the photographs you can !' Next day I had a money order.
Only in the train did I dare to study the photographs; I locked
myself in the lavatory. They were precisely what we needed: in the
cellar beneath the destroyed Parliament, a corridor ran towards
GcYring's residence; the JTv^f^diarire' secret entrance had been dis-
covered. 5

The "Brown Book accordingly published a 'Central Section of the
Reichstag Cellar 9 to show tfrg secret* way in which *hft incendiaries
must have entered the building.

There is such a secret way into the Reichstag, namely the underground
passage which connects the house of the President of the Reichstag
(GSring) with the Reichstag building itsel e

The Communists themselves knew only too well that this
Section Plan did not show the passage itself, but only a part of the
Reichstag cellar. To my knowledge, no one has drawn attention
to this deliberate deception.

The Brown Book also published a 'Section Plan of the German
Reichstag Building* with the legend: 'The entrance to the under-
ground passage leading to Goring' s house is just above the word
'SitzungsaaT . The idea was to suggest to the reader (a) that the
passage ran straight to, and only to, Goring' s residence and (b) that
it ended directly beneath the Session Chamber. Had they printed
a genuine section of the passage, their colourful theories would
quickly have been exploded, for Wallot* s book, from which Regler
had taken the plan, made no mention of a Speaker's residence,
which was, in feet, built in 1903, nine years after the completion of
the Reichstag. In order to join it to the central heating system, a
special tunnel had then to be built, joining the main passage beneath
the driveway of the Speaker's residence.

The passage, or tunnel, therefore, had three exits or entrances,
one in die boiler house, a second in the Reichstag cellar and a third
in the Speaker's residence. The Communists probably learned
about this last entrance at the end of World War I when the
revolutionary 'Reichstag' regiment gained a measure of notoriety :

76

THE CRIMINAL CASE

This 'Reichstag* regiment was made up of rather suspicious characters.
They kept running up and down the passage. Machine-guns had been
set up in the passage, and other arms were hidden there by members
of the regiment and sold in secret. Once sold, they were taken out
through the boiler room or the Speaker's residence. Ever since then
the passage has been extremely popular in Left circles, at least to my
knowledge. 7

On 9 May 1933 the locksmith Wingurth testified before Judge
Vogt, the Thm-mining Magistrate:

As for the rumour that die incendiaries entered and escaped through
the underground passage, all I can say is that the whole thing strikes
me as extremely unlikely, because too many doors would have had to
be opened and shut, and I was told that all the doors were found
properly locked after the fire.

The door leading to the Reichstag cellar from the drive . . . can
only be opened with a spanner. The iron door behind it must be
opened with an ordinary key. In the cellar itself there is another, un-
locked door. A bit farther along is the door into the Reichstag (the so-
called black door) . At the other end of the passage there is another iron
door, the so-called red door, which is kept locked. The red door leads
to the passage between the Reichstag and the boiler house and thence,
through two other locked doors, to the courtyard. 8

In other words, the cellar and the passage were sealed off by a
number of doors, all of which were locked every night at 7 p.m.
The keys were usually handed in to the doorkeeper ofthe Speaker's
residence, or, less frequently, to the night porter ofthe Reichstag.

The tunnel itself was included in the rounds of the night porter,
particularly since, in 1932, the police had been warned of an
intended dynamite attack on the Rjadhstag. They were told that the
dynamite had been hidden somewhere in the cellar, and that the
criminals would try to enter the Reichstag through the under-
ground passage. At the time the whole building was immediately
searched - in vain. Nevertheless it was thought necessary to take
additional precautions, and it was then that tie red door was first
put in.

How extremely difficult it really was to find the inconspicuous
door to the passage in the maze of corridors and doors of the
Reichstag cellar, was demonstrated during die trial. A police officer,
whom -the Court had sent into the passage in order to determine
whether or not he would make a great deal of noise down there,

77

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

failed to return. The judges -waited with increasing impatience, and
finally sent a search party to look for him. They found him
wandering about in the labyrinth below, hopelessly lost. 9 These
facts in themselves ought to have suggested how ridiculous it was
to assume that a gang of foreign incendiaries could have rushed
through that maze in record time.

The main passage formed a straight T at its junction with the
subsidiary passage, so that no one could have hidden himself or
anything in it without being discovered. In addition, it had a
peculiarity which Douglas Reed described as follows: '. . . the
tunnel was floored with loose metal plates which, as I was able to
satisfy myself, made a din that must have been heard by him (the
porter).' 10

Reed was able to 'satisfy himself* of this din when, during the
reconstruction of the crime, the Court was led through the
passage by engineer Heinrich Risse:

The judges, die Public Prosecutor and his collaborator, counsel for the
defence, all laid aside their robes and made their way to the cellars.
The five accused, the relevant witnesses, and the representatives of die
international press followed. . . .

The passage was a narrow brick one, floored with loose steel plates,
and there was a clatter and a jangle as some sixty newspaper re-
presentatives made their way through it. 11

These clattering and jangling plates made nonsense of the whole
passage hypothesis for, as further experiments showed, the plates
resounded noisily even when people walked over them in carpet
slippers. A group of seven to ten men storming through the
passage would have been heard by the night porter of Goring's
residence even if they had walked on tiptoe. Now when the night
porter, Paul Adcrmann, testified on oath that he heard no suspicious
noises -whatsoever, the Court had to believe him _ the Presiding
Judge himself had participated in the demonstration witnessed by
Reed. The state of the window through which van der Lubbe had
entered, the marks he left on the outside wall, and the evidence of
the student, Hoter, left no doubt about the real path the incendiary
had taken.

II

THE POLITICAL CASE

5. Brown versus Red

HITLER'S FIGHT WITH WINDMILLS

WHEN Marinus van der Lubbe fired the Reichstag, he could not
have chosen a more crucial moment in Germany's history. A state
of civil -war, that had lasted for just under fifteen years and in which
thousands had fallen, had culminated in victory for the one side.
Henceforth battles would no longer be waged in the street, but old
scores would be settled in S.A. barracks, in quickly erected con-
centration camps, and in prisons. The police, recently abused as the
representatives of a hated system, were turned into the new
Government's trusted henchmen, almost overnight.

Even though they had climbed into the saddle, the Nazis feared
that their Communist enemies had, at best, suffered a severe set-
back. Judging by the past, they might hit back at any moment,
and the only thing to do was to expect the -worst, and to pounce
on them on the slightest excuse.

That is why the fire started by a young fanatic was immediately
turned into a maj or political issue, and why he was sacrificed in the
struggle between brown and red. With van der Lubbe, the German
police had caught, not an incendiary, but an immense red her-
ring. ...

When Dr Ernst Hanfstaengl, a guest in G6ring*s residence,
heard the jangle of fire cngitipg outside, he rushed to tlyp telephone
and called Dr Goebbels who, as he knew, was entertaining Hitler
that evening. At first, Goebbels thought the whole thing was a
practical joke - HanfstaengTs way of paying him back for a recent
hoax. Goebbels therefore told him not to be so damned silly and
slammed the receiver down. A little while later, Goebbels had
second thoughts and decided to ring Hanfstaengl back. Hanf-
staengl was furious by now, and told Go ebbels to come and see for
hinwlf. In the end, Goebbels called the Brandenburg Gate police-
station, where he was told that the Reichstag was ablaze. 1

While Goebbels the diarist had this to say about the beginning
of that exciting evening: 'At nine o'clock the Fiihrer is expected to

8l

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

dinner. We shall listen to music or chat' 1 , Goebbels the pro-
pagandist gave out a different story next morning: 'Reich
Chancellor Hitler rushed to the scene [tine Reichstag] straight from
his arduous work. He was accompanied by Dr Goebbels and
Oberfuhrer Ernst.' 8

Goring -was waiting for them in the Reichstag. Unlike Hitler, he
had, in fact, been forced to interrupt his work. At 4.15 pjn. he had
attended a Cabinet meeting and had then gone on to tne Prussian
Ministry of the Interior, where he was just having a discussion with
Ludwig Grauert, an old air-force comrade and now his Under-
secretary, when the door was pulled open and Goring's adjutant,
Police Captain Jacoby, rushed in with tic news of the fire. Goring
was completely taken aback, and exploded: 'What the hell is going
on? Get me a car at once ! I'm going straight there !' 4

After telling his private secretary, Fraulcin Grundtmann, that he
wanted to see Sommerfeldt, his press chie in the Reichstag as soon
as possible, Goring raced off. Near the Reichstag his car was
stopped a number of times by policemen who had meanwhile
cordoned off the entire area. It was from one of them that Goring
first heard the word arson, and that he first realized that 'the
Communist Party had set the Reichstag on fire'. 6

Goring first tried to enter the Reichstag through Portal Three,
but finding it locked he made for Portal Two which had meanwhile
been opened. There he and his party - all in mufti - were quietly
joined by another civilian, the Berlin correspondent of the London
Times, Douglas Reed. Reed's joy was, however, short-lived, for he
was quickly recognized as a gate-crasher and put out by the police.
The same happened to two other journalists whom Coring dis-
covered in a telephone box.

Next, Goring gave orders to notify Hitler and the Chief of
Police. He also told Chief Fire Director Gempp, who had rushed
up to report to the Minister, not to bother about him but to carry
on with the job of putting out the fire. Then Goring went to his
own Reichstag rooms where he was soon afterwards joined by
Vice-Chancellor von Papen, and a little later by Hitler and
Goebbels.

Meanwhile Under-Secretary Grauert, who had come along in
Goring's car,- was told by Albert Wendt, the night porter, that the
last people to leave the House had been Deputies Torgler and
Koenen two Communists. The day porter, WiQhelm Hornemann,

82

THE POLITICAL CASE

made things even, -worse for Koenen when he alleged that Koenen
had tried to sneak into the Reichstag at about 7 pan., his coat collar
suspiciously turned up and his face averted. Then Robert Kohls,
cloakroom attendant at Portal Two, stated that he had rung up the
Communist Party rooms at about 8 p.m., but that no one had
answered. He had been most surprised, therefore, when Torgler's
secretary rang down only a short while later to ask for Torgler's
coat. Kohls was taken to Minister Goring, who considered his story
so important that he asked Kohls to come along to the Ministry of
the Interior.

Vice-chancellor von Papen had spent the early part of the
evening at the Conservative Herrenklub, where he was

. . . giving a dinner in the President's honour. Suddenly we noticed

a red glow through the windows The Field-Marshal got up, and

all of us watched the dome of the Reichstag looking as though it were
illuminated by searchlights.

[Hindenburg] seemed rather unmoved and merely asked to be
given further news as soon as possible ... I went straight to the burning

j . . . and found Gdring in one ofthe badly damaged corridors,
-where as Prussian Minister ofthe Interior he was giving orders to the
fir<ymert- < TTiig is a Communist crime against the new Government,*
he shouted to me. 8

Papen, who had no reason to doubt Goring, expressed his disgust
at this latest Communist outrage to the journalists waiting outside.

An official car had meanwhile brought Goring's press officer,
Martin Sommerfeldt, to the Reichstag. This is how he remembered
the scene:

Gdring was standing in the smoke-filled lobby, surrounded by officers
ofthe fire brigade and the police. I reported to him, and found him
quite ralm 1 opined the impression that, though he was worried about

the fire, he cud not attach too much importance to it. He told me
quietly and briefly to get out full reports on the cause and the extent of
tie fire, and to draft an official communique*. 7

Sommerfeldt set to work at once.

Because ofthe size ofthe conflagration, no one present that night
had the slightest doubt that a whole gang of arsonists - naturally
Communists must have been responsible for the fire. Imagine
Goring's surprise, therefore, when he was told that, though the

83

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

whole building had been sealed off and though every nook and
cranny had been searched, not a single accomplice had been run to
earth. It was then that Goring suddenly remembered the false alarm
of 1932, when the political police had notified Tn'm, as the Speaker,
of a threatened dynamite attack. Could not the criminals have
followed the same route as the alleged dynamiters of last year?
Goring immediately ordered a search of the underground passage,
and his adjutant, Captain Jacoby, delegated the job to Gdring's
bodyguaro, Walter Weber. With an escort of three policemen,
chosen at random - as he testified before the Supreme Court and
also told the author of this book in the spring of 1960 - Weber
raced across to the Speaker's residence to fetch the keys from the
housekeeper, Frau Puschke. The four of them then unlocked the
door to the passage and found - absolutely nothing. Even so,
Goring kept itiiring that the passage must have been used by
van der Lubbe's accomplices.

More fortunate by far than his colleague Douglas Reed -was the
Berlin correspondent of the London Daily Express, Sefton Delmer,
who was allowed to enter the burning Reichstag with Hitler's
party. Delmer heard Goring tell Hitler straightaway that the fire
had obviously been started by Communists, that a number of
Communist deputies had been seen leaving the Reichstag shortly
before the fire was detected, that one of the Communist incen-
diaries had been arrested, that th^ entire Prussian police had been
mobilized and that every public building had been specially
garrisoned. 'We are ready for anything/ Goring said.

Then Hitler moved to one of the balconies to watch the raging
inferno in the Chamber. Other Nazi leaders and Cabinet Ministers,
inrlnJing Dr Prick, Prince August Wilhelm, the Lord Mayor of
Berlin, Dr Sahm, and Police President von Levetzow, had mean-
while joined their Fiihrer, and so had the British Ambassador, Sir
Horace RumbokL

This is how RudolfDiels described the scene :

On a

bakony proje
band of his fai

into the Chamber stood Hitler, surrounded

by a band of his faithful Hitler was leaning over the stone parapet,

gazing at the red ocean of fire. When I entered, GSring stepped
towards me. His voice conveyed the foil pathos of the dramatic hour:

'This is the beginning of a Communist uprising. Not a moment must

111

be lost...

GOring could not go on, for Hitler had swung round towards us. I
84

THE POLITICAL CASE

saw that his face had turned quite scarlet, both with excitement and
also with the heat. . . . Suddenly he started screaming at the top of his
voice:

'Now we'll show them! Anyone who stands in our way will be
mown down. The German people have been soft too long. Every
Communist official must be shot. All Communist deputies must be
hanged this very night. All friends of the Communists must be locked
up. And that goes for the Social Democrats and the Reichsbanner as
well.'*

This outburst was anything but a well-rehearsed act on Hitler's
part. Uncertainty about Communist plans had weighed heavily
upon him ever since he became Chancellor on 30 January, and had
increased daily as the Communists continued to lie low. Now, the
enemy had struck at last - how could it be otherwise? This fire
could have only one purpose - it was the signal for a Communist
uprising, first in Berlin and then in the whole of Germany. Now
the Communists would make common cause with the Social
Democrats and with the millions of Trade Unionists. A general
strike would be proclaimed, and Hitler's dreams of empire might
be shattered once again. Was the 'national rebirth' to fere no better
than the nationalist Kapp putsch in 1920? Had not the German
Trade Union President, T. Leipart, called Hitler's appointment as
Chancellor a 'declaration of war against the -workers', adding:
'Because of their determination and love of freedom the German
workers will wage a lifc-and-death struggle, the terrible con-
sequences of which, ought to be a warning to the new rulers.' 9

And had not Vorwarts, the official organ of the Social Democratic
Party, told the new rulers on 30 January 1933, that they would rue
the day they decided to take illegal measures? Had they not
threatened a general strike, Claiming that:

Striking is a legal weapon. ... But tactical reasons tell us to be sparing
with it, lest die crucial moment find us exhausted. ... In

these, things can change very quickly. There is only one answer to the
alliance of the enemies of the working class : a United Front.

Goebbels recorded the reactions of the Nazi leaders when, on 3 1
January, he wrote in his diary :

During discussions with the Ffihrer we drew up the plans of battle
against the red terror. For the time being, we decided against any
direct countermeasures. The Bolshevik rebellion miist first of all flare
up; only then shall we hit back. 10

85

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

(Coring mentioned, the same plan in 193 3 and again after the "war.
Hence it was no wonder that, when Rudolf Dids gave Hitler his
own view, namely that the fire must have been started by a mad-
man, Hitler scoffed at his artlessness and said:

'This is a cunning and well-prepared plot. The only thing is that they
have reckoned without us and without the German people. In their
rat-holes, from which they are now trying to crawl out again, they
cannot hear the jubilation of the masses.' 11

Diels, who was a police expert on Communist activities, took a
much more realistic view of the situation. He knew better than
anyone else that the Communists had no intention of staging a
rebellion that mnch he had learned clearly from an army of
Communist turncoats and traitors. However, not only Hitler but
even Goring, who as Diels's chief) ought to have known the truth,
refused to listen to him, and ordered

a state of alert for the entire police, merciless use of fire-arms, and what
similar emergency measures there were in his great military arsenal I
repeated that I had sent a radio message to all police authorities order-
ing, in his narrift, a general alert and the arrest of all those Communist
officials who haH long ago been hallmarked, for arrest in case the
Communist Party was proscribed. 18

Dr Schneider confirmed his colleague Diels's description of
Hitler's furious outburst in the Reichstag :

After Hiderhad shaVm himself out of a kind of torpor, he started what
seemed an unending stream of vituperations against 'Communist
monsters'. He and Gdring "were absolutely convinced that the

Communists had intendea the MiatnftlgM burning of Germany's

palladium* as a signal for their boasted mass action. Hitler quite
seriously gave the police orders to hang all Communist deputies and
to take other drastic steps, though only some of his instructions were
practicable and hence broadcast over all police transmitters, viz:

1. All P^mmirnfrtm^mK^rgnftVif TVJchgfag, thf T.a-rullagr, Mnniripql

Councils and all Communist officials arc to be arrested;

2. All Communist newspapers are to be seized. 13

Looking back at that hectic day, Dr Schneider today believes that:

What militates most against Nazi responsibility or complicity was the
extraordinary agitation which the news of the fire sparked off among
members of the Government and among leading Nazis. This shows

86

THE POLITICAL CASE

better than anything that the fire was not pre-arranged by them. I was
able to watch their agitation with my own eyes.

A third eye-witness of Hitler's dismay was Sefton DeLtner :

That evening, Hitler himself was not yet absolutely certain that the fire
was a Communist plot, This became dear from what he said to me as
we walked side by side through the burning building. 'God grant,' he
said, 'that this be the work of the Communists. You are now witness-
ing the beginning of a great newepoch in German history.' That was
the first clue. Hitler did not say, "This is the work of the Communists 9 ,
but, 'God grant this be the work of the Communists/ And a little later,
when von Papen appeared, Hitler seized his hand, pumped it with
much unbecoming enthusiasm, and said: 'This is a God-given signal,
Herr Vice-Chan cell or ! If this fire, as I believe, is the work of the
Communists, then we must crush out this murder pest with an iron
fist.' Note the 'if.

Like Dr Schneider, Delmer concluded :

It must be granted that what I saw ofHider's and Goebbels's behaviour
in the Reichstag does not fit in with the theory that both were party
or even privy to the Reichstag fire plot. 14

Clearly, the Reichstag fire was no brilliantly conceived plan, no
ingenious stratagem by the Nazis to destroy their opponents on
the contrary it was the Nazis' fear that the fire might let loose a
flood of red terror that caused them to unleash a flood of brown
terror first. The world was to learn time and again with what blind

iry Wit-W in wriahly rrartfxl to r^al fir imaginary fhrgai* T

The fantastic spectacle of Hitler's maniacal monologue on the
nigfii! of the fire may well explain the remarkable tact that Hitler
himself was never incrirninated by even bis worst enemies. So high
pitched was Hitler's voice, in fact, and so hysterical his tirade to his
h*ni4Trun that Diels turned to his colleague and said: 'This is a
real madhouse, Schneider.'

Hitler's delusions, which remind one so forcefully of Don
Quixote's tilting against windmills or drawing his sword at empty
wineskins, also stopped t^ Nazi leaders from realizing that the
Communist threat existed only in their own minds. Moreover, it
was this very misconception which gave birth to the legend of the
'Reichstag fire mystery - a legend which has obstinately obscured
the simple truth for three decades.

. . .

8?

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

That very night, Division IA became the scene of feverish
activity, as warrants were issued for the arrest of all Communist
Party officials. The first squads - each consisting of a detective and
two uniformed constables - set out at dawn, on 28 February 193 3.
At 3 . 1 5 a.m. , a message was sent to the airport police in Tcmpelhof
and at 3 .25 a radio message was broadcast to German border patrols,
warning them to intercept all Communist officials and deputies.

Meanwhile an improvised ministerial conference was being held
in the Ministry of the Interior. Among those present were Hitler,
von Papcn and Goring, together with the Nationalist Under-
secretary von Bismarck, Under-Secretary Grauert, Police Presi-
dent von Levetzow, the Head of Division IA Rudolf Diels, and
other high officials. On the agenda were the measures that must be
taken to prevent the expected terrorist attacks by the Communists.
Grauert, who was not a Nazi, insisted on an adequate legal basis for
these measures, and Dr Frick undertook to provide it. 15

Among the many curious spectators who gaped at van der Lubbe
during the police interrogation on the night of the fire were the
Nazi deputies, Berthold Karwahne and Kurt Frey and the Austrian
Nazi official, Stefan Kroyer. They had been out on a spree, when
they heard a late-night radio message that Torgler and Koenen had
fled the Reichstag at about 10 p.m., and were wanted for question-
ing. Despite the late hour, Karwahne and his friends decided to call
on Goring at the Ministry of the Interior. They told him that they
had happened to pass the Communist Party rooms in the Reichstag
a number of times that afternoon, and that on every occasion
Torgler had been huddled together with extremely suspicious
characters. Torgler himself had looked so guilty when he felt
himself observed as to leave little doubt about what he was doing :
he was briefing the others for arson.

Goring thereupon sent the Nazi trio straight to police head-
quarters, where a thoughtless detective led them to Heisig's room.
lidiatwaytieywcreaUowedtxDc^txiagliinpseofvanderLubbe,
whom, needless to say, they 'identified' as one of the men they had
seen with Torgler.

In their excitement the police had committed an irreparable
blunder - they had allowed witnesses to look at a police suspect,
and then to describe him as someone they had seen earlier. As a
result, Torgler might easily have been hanged, had he not been

88

THE POLITICAL CASE

saved by a series of fortunate circumstances, and by the devotion of
his guardian angel and defending counsel, Dr Alfons Sack.

In the blazing Reichstag, Sommerfeldt had meanwhile carried
out Goring's orders to gather what information he could about the
fire and its causes. What the fire officials and Diels and Schneider
told him was not much, but at least it had the advantage of agreeing
with the facts fairly well :

I learned that the fire was discovered at 9 p.m. by a civilian who
notified the nearest policeman. The latter alerted a police patrol, the
police-station alerted the fire brigade, etc. The policeman saw a man
tugging wildly at a curtain over one of the large panes in the lobby,
and fired a shot at him. When the police entered: the building, they
found burning firelighters everywhere, which suggested arson. They
managed to collect about a hundredweight or this motional, anrj
arrested a man who seemed to be running berserk in the corridors.
The man was carrying firelighters on his person. 16

Apart from the weight of the firelighters, Sommerfeldt had been
told the truth, and he immediately drafted a press communique^ :

My draft ran to some twenty lines, and contained no facts other than
those mentioned.

Tn view of the tense political situation, ar> H the coming elections, I
deliberately refrained from dramatizing what struck me as a most
mysterious affair.

When Sommerfeldt submitted his draft to Goring at about
i a.m., he found to his surprise that '. . . whereas Goring had been
completely composed in the blazing Reichstag, he was now in a
state of great excitement.*

Sommerfeldt, who had not been there to see Hitler turning
scarlet in the face as he shook Goring out of his composure, Diels
out of his 'ardessness', and Goebbels out of his 'wait-and-see*
policy, was even more surprised when Goring glanced at the
report, flung all the papers on his desk to one side, thumped the
table with his fist and thundered:

'That's sheer rubbish ! It may be a good police report, but it's not
at all *li^ kind of communique* I have in mind !'

Sommerfeldt, who knew he had done his job conscientiously,
was deeply hurt: 'His tone was insulting; no one had ever dared to
speak to me in that way.'

89

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Goring, for his part, could, not understand how anyone could
produce that kind of insipid report after Hitler's prophetic outburst
in the Reichstag. Rather than convince his stubborn press attach^,
he seized a blue pencil and, shouting: 'This is sheer rubbish,' again,
he went on: ' * One hundredweight of incendiary material? No,
ten or even a hundred." And he added two noughts to my modest
one/

Now Sommerfeldt, too, became annoyed:

'This is quite impossible, Minister ! No one can possibly believe
that a single man could have carried that load . . .'

Goring snapped back :

'Nothing is impossible. Why mention a single man? There were
ten or even twenty men! Don't you understand what's been
happening? The whole tTijtig was a signal for a Communist
uprising!

If he thought that would floor Sommerfeldt at last, Goring was
quite wrong:

'I do not think so, Minister. No one has mentioned anything of
the sort, not even Dids, whom I saw in the Reichstag. He merely
thought that the Communists might have been responsible. I must
insist, Minister, that my report is based on the official findings of the
fire brigade and the police/

Goring remained speechless for a moment, and then he flung his
giant blue pencil furiously on to the desk.

'I shall dictate the report myself to Franlcin Grundtmann. You
ran insist all you want.

Goring started dictating to his secretary without once stopping,
but glancing at a piece of paper now and then. He gave it out as an

ablis'

established fact that the Reichstag fire had been intended as a signal
for a Communist campaign ofbloodshed and arson. He ordered the
police to take all Communist officials into protective custody and
to confiscate all Marxist newspapers. Goring multiplied my own
figures by ten, with a side-long glance in my direction.

The additional nine culprits thus introduced became an integral
part of the Reichstag fire 'mystery', and even Goring forgot its real
origins. His ten criminals were welcomed by the Communigf^who
quickly turned them into Nazis.

When Goring had finished, Sommerfeldt asked him to sign the
report.

Whatever for?' Goring asked in astonishment.

90

THE POLITICAL CASE

'Because this is not an official report on a fire, Minister, but a
political document. The news agencies will only accept it from, me
if you sign it officially/

Silently, Goring wrote his distinctive large C G* underneath the
last line.

When Sommerfeldt took the communique to the Government
agency (Wolffs Telegrafen-Biiro - WTB) he discovered that the
newly-appointed commissar, Alfred Ingemar Berndt, had already
released a communiqu^ by Goebbels. Sommerfeldt mused :

Now I realized what the piece of paper was which Gdring kept look-
ing at while he dictated his report.

At last, it dawned on him:

While I was busy questioning the experts in the Reichstag, and
writing my draft report, something must have happened to turn the
Reichstag fire into a political event of the first importance.

Goring's full communique read as follows:

Results of the official investigation

Investigations of the fire which broke out in the German Reichstag

have shown that the incendiary material could not have been carried

in by less tb*** 1 seven persons, and that the distribution and
simultaneous lighting of the several fires in the gigantic building
required the presence of at least ten persons.

The fact that the incendiaries were completely at home in the vast
building suggests that they must have been people who have had free
access to the House over a long period. Hence there are grave
suspicions that the culprits were deputies of the Communist Party
who have recently been assembling in the Reichstag rmd^r all sorts or
pretexts.

Their familiarity with the building and with th^ duty rota also
explains why the police caught no one except a Dutch Communist,
who, being unfamiliar with the building, was unable to escape after he
had committed the crime. The arrested man, whom the Dutch police
describe as a dangerous radical, is known to have been present during
the deliberations of the Communist Action Committee, where he

Moreover, the arrested Dutch criminal was seen by three eye-
witnesses in the company of the Communist deputies Torglcr and
Koenenafewhours before the fire.

Since, furthermore, the Deputies' Entrance to the Reichstag is
locked at 8 p.m., and since the Communist deputies Torgler and

91

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Koenen had asked for their coats at about 8.30 p.m., but did not leave
the Reichstag, through another exit, until 10 p.m., they arc suspected
of complicity in the crime.

According to a false rumour, Deputy Torgler has reported to the
police of his own free wilL All he did do was to apply for a safe-
conduct the moment he realized that he could not escape. His
application was refused, and Torgler was arrested. 17

The figures quoted, and particularly the number seven, readily
suggested that the police had obtained them after a scrupulous
investigation. That figure was, however, merely the result of a
spontaneous - and as he himself came to recognize soon afterwards
- precipitate exclamation by House-Inspector Scranowitz, who
had let slip during the night of the fire that at least six to eight
persons must have been responsible. Now since 'six to eight' gives
an average of seven, seven was the number which was generally
adopted. Goring himself reported to the Cabinet on 2 March
1933 that, according to the experts, at least six to seven persons
must have started the fire.

On the other hand, it seems incredible that as late as I March
official reports still alleged that Torgler and Koenen had left the
Reichstag at about 10 p.iru, when that canard, based on a confusion
of Torgler with the National Socialist deputy, Dr Albrecht, had
already been exploded on 28 February. No wonder that official
German reports were henceforth treated with so much scepticism
abroad.

THE ARREST OF THE 'RINGLEADERS'

On leaving the Reichstag, Torgler, Koenen, and Torgler's
secretary, Anna Rehme, who suffered from phlebitis, started
walking very slowly to the Friedrichstrasse station. There Fraulein
Rehme took her leave of them, and the two deputies went to dinner
in the Aschinger Restaurant, where Torgler had arranged to meet
the Communist deputy Birkenhauer. About an hour later, they
heard the news that the Reichstag was on fire. At first Torgler
thought that the whole thing was a joke, but he soon changed his
mind, and tried to get back to the building. But trams were no
longer allowed to stop near the Reichstag, and Torgler decided to
return to Aschinger f s. Meanwhile Koenen had left, but Torgler
met him again at Stawicki's Beer Hall, near the Alexandeqplatz,
where they had previously arranged to play cards. Torgler, who

92

THE POLITICAL CASE

was convinced the fire had been started by some careless fool, was
completely stunned -when he heard from Walter Oehme that he,
Torgler, had just been described as an incendiary over the radio,
and the fire as a signal for a Communist uprising. Torgler and his
friends quickly put their heads together in Stawicki's Bar, and all of
them concluded that, since the Government was blaming com-
pletely innocent people, the fire could only be a deliberate Nazi
plot to prevent the Communist Party from fighting the coming
elections. After a number of telephone conversations, Torgler
decided to call the Nazis* bluff and to report to the police. He knew
that he -would have no difficulty in proving his complete innocence.

Had he had the least suspicion that the whole campaign, far from
being a carefully planned provocation, was simply one of Hitler's
many misjudgements against which it was useless to argue, Torgler,
as he admits today, would have followed the example of Picck,
Ulbricht and ELoenen, to mention only a few Communist leaders,
and have fled abroad instead of bearding the brown lion in his den.
Had he done so, however, his disappearance would have been
considered a clear admission of guilt.

When Torgler eventually rang Division IA to announce his visit,
he caused a tremendous stir, the ripples of which quickly reached
Goring and Hitler. For meanwhile Detective Karl Spietz had re-
ported that Torgler was away from home, that his wife claimed frft
knew nothing of his whereabouts, and that there was good reason
to assume that he had made a quick getaway. And now the alleged
fugitive had decided to turn up at police headquarters with two
lawyers: Dr Kurt Rosenfcld and Rosenfdd's daughter, Frau Dr
Kirchhetmer. No wonder Goebbels felt impelled to dispel tV"g
'rumour' in his press communique.

After he had been kept waiting for hours at the police-station,
Torgler was told by Superintendent Reinhold Heller thathe would
have to stay there. Ana stay there he did.

While the Reichstag was still ablaze, the Munich-Berlin night
express carried a passenger whose passport showed him to be a Dr
Rudolf Hediger from Reinadu In fact, that passport was a forgery,
one of many such churned out in a special Communist workshop in
48a Kaiserallee, Berlin-WilmersdorE Frau Rossler, from Berlin,
would most certainly not have looked twice at the impressive
middle-aged gentleman who was paying her compliments with so

93

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

much southern dash, had she had the least suspicion that he was
none other than Georgi Dimitrov, head of the West European
Section of the Comintern. As it was, Frau Rossler declared her
readiness to continue the acquaintance and agreed to a rendezvous
in West Berlin.

Dimitrov's comrades and later co-accused, the Bulgarians
Blagoi Simon Popov, and Vassili Tanev, spent the afternoon of
27 February 1933 in various Berlin cafe and finished the evening
in an UFA cinema in the Nollcnbergplatz, where they saw Demon
Islands.

By the beginning of March, van der Lubbe's picture was
plastered all over public hoardings and published in newspapers

provide information leading to the capture ofhis accomplices.

On 3 March, Johannes Helmer showed the evening paper
(Nachtausgabe) to his fellow-waiters in the Bayernhof Restaurant in

the Potsdamerstrasse, and asked them whether they did not
recognize van der Lubbe's picture. He reminded them about those
"Russians 9 who had repeatedly entered the restaurant - which was a
Nari hannt-by mistake. The other eightwaiters shook their heads-
not one of them could remember the face. Still, Helmer wanted the
20,000 marks badly, and he decided to go to the police. This is what
he told them:

In my opinion this man is certainly one of the guests who repeatedly
came into the caf6 with the Russians. All of them struck me as

migpirinrig rharagterg, Ivraiigg they all gpnlcg in a foreign language, and

because they all dropped their voices whenever anyone 'went past
their table. 18

Detective Walter Holzhauser then showed Helmer a number of
photographs, whereupon he readily picked out van der Lubbe's
(which he had just seen in the evening paper). He went on to say:
'I am positive that this man came to the Bayernhof a number of
times from, the spring to the late summer of 1932.'

Since the police were being overrun with reports of this kind
they merely asked Helmer to report back the moment the Russians
appeared again.

Two days later - on 9 March- Helmer rang Holzhluser.

"They are back,' he told them.

Holzhauser and Detective Cast raced over to the Bayernhof, and

94

THE POLITICAL CASE

sat down with such, conspicuous indifference that the 'Russians'
became suspicious and tried to leave. The whole scene was
described by the Communist writer Ernst Fischer after the war :

. . . Round the table sat a big, broad-shouldered man with a dark,
lion's matift, and two younger men, slighter in build and less striking
in appearance.

Tne detective asked them to come along. The big, broad-
shouldered man produced his papers. His real name was Georgi
Dimitrov. 19

True, that was the man's real name, but not the name he gave to
the detective, or which appeared in his passport. The second
'Russian 9 carried a passport made out in the name of Pcnev. The
third 'Russian' tried to escape through the revolving door, but was
caught by Detective Cast. He then gave his name as Popov. Popov,
who had no passport on him, tried to escape again, but in the encl he
gave up the struggle, and all three were taken to headquarters in a
taxi.

Once there, the passports were quickly recognized as forgeries
from the Berlin Communist forgers shop which had recently been
raided and whose stamps had been confiscated.

On the wa to headuarters Dimitrov had tried to

squeeze a

piece of paper behind the taxi seat. When Holzhauser had delivered
Ids three charges, he went back to the cab and pulled out a Comin-
tern appeal dated 3 March 1933. Clearly the 'Russians' were
dangerous Bolsheviks, and Helmcr had been quite right to report

Dimitrov and his two compatriots had a wild political past. After
fleeing from his native Bulgaria in 1924, Dimitrov had lived in
Yugoslavia, Austria, Germany and Russia, constantly changing his
name. Like an experienced confidence "man, he had played on the
German respect for academic titles, calling himself Dr Jan
Schaafsma-Schmidt, Dr Rudolf Hediger, Dr Stein, Dr Steiner and
Professor Dr Jahn. When he insisted that he had obtained his last
passport from a Swiss friend, he merely increased suspicion against
hinrwlf, for the police knew perfectly well where his passport had
been 'issued*.

Popov and Tanev were exiled Bulgarian Communists as well,
andhiadHvedinRiissiaandGerinany.Tanevwastheonlyoneofthe

95

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

three who had been amnestied and 'who had been back to his native
Bulgaria.

Dimitrov tried to excuse his false papers and the fact that he had
failed to report regularly to the police, by claiming that his political
opponents in Bulgaria, where he had been sentenced to death,
would not hesitate to take his life even abroad. For that reason he
had simply had to 'disappear*. He had no connection whatsoever
with either the Reichstag fire or with the German Communist
Party. His sole concern was with Bulgaria, and the moment a
political amnesty was proclaimed, he would be returning home.

Not love alone, but distrust as well, is blind. How else explain
police readiness to listen to Helmet's allegations? One feet alone
ought to have given them pause for reflection : so oddly dressed an
individual as van der Lubbe was bound to have been noticed by
everyone in the Bayernhof, not only by one waiter.

Nor did the police bother to check whether van der Lubbe had
been in Berlin at the time Helmer alleged he had seen him. This
very neglect led to the ridiculous trial of the three innocent
Bulgarians, and earned the German police world-wide scorn. In
fact, van der Lubbe had spent the rime in question at home, signing
for his weekly disability allowance in his own hand.

True, Helmer's avarice provided the Nazis with a deceptively
welcome increase in the number of culprits, but they were die first
to regret it later. For when the 'Russian' Dimitrov was attacked in
Court, he did not lie down meekly but gave his accusers and j udges
at least as good as he got.

THE ENABLING LAWS

In the weeks following the fire, the Government's unfounded
fear of possible Communist outrages became the excuse not only
for police raids and vicious excesses by Hitler's brown henchmen,
but also for a wave of new kws and regulations. The first and most
notorious of these, the 'Decree for the Protection of the People and
the State' was promulgated on 28 February 1933.

The fact that this decree was passed only one day after the fire, has
suggested to many historian

advance. To obtain the sweeping powers this decree conferred on
him, they said, all Hitler had to do was to send the Reichstag up in

Today it can be shown that the decree was not drafted in advance,
96

THE POLITICAL CASE

'merely to be fetched out of a drawer'. It was during the ad hoc
conference in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior on the night of
the fire that the then Under-Secretary and former Attorney-
General, Ludwig Grauert, insisted on the obvious fact that the
emergency measures demanded by Hitler in the blazing Reichstag,
and endorsed by all those present, must be put on a sound legal
footing.

For that reason an Extraordinary Meeting of the Cabinet was
called for next morning. The only point on the agenda was the
political situation. After Hitler had called for the 'ruthless sup-
pression of the Communist Party* which 'was determined to go to
any lengths', he 'submitted' the following five points to the
Cabinet: (i) to thank the Reichstag officials, the police and the fire
brigade for their magnificent work; (2) to start rebuilding the
Reichstag at once; (3) to leave the date ot the general election un-
changed; (4) to transfer the new Reichstag to the Potsdam Palace;
and (5) to adopt Grauert's suggestion and to pass a law for the
protection of the nation against the Communist danger.

The Cabinet was so unanimous in its fear of a Communist
'counter-revolution' that Hitler had no need whatever of
bludgeoning them into signing his odious decree.

97

6. Counter-Attack

REFUGEES FROM NAZI TERROR

THE 60,000 unfortunate refugees 1 who had to flee their native land
when Hitler came to power could console themselves with the fact
that all they left behind in the Third Reich was one great con-
centration camp. Few carried away more than bitter hatred, and
none believed a single word the Nazis ever spoke or published. The
Communists among them, knowing that the very idea of a 'red
uprising' was sheer nonsense, declared that the whole Reichstag fire
was a Nazi pre-election stunt.

Furious because what they thought was a Nazi bluffhad paid off,
and sorely discountenanced at the ignominious collapse of die great
German workers' movement, they decided to hit back as best they
could from abroad. To start with, they knew that Goring's 'official
communiqu' on the night of the fire had been a tissue of lies or, at
best, of gross exaggerations - the German press itself had been
forced to retract the story that van der Lubbe had been caught
with a Communist Party membership card and that he had been
in dose touch with Social Democratic leaders. And since Goring
had been caught out in two whopping lies, there was little reason
to think that the rest of his pronouncements were any better.
In vain did the 'Fiihrer' of the 'German Legal Front', Dr Hans
Frank, appeal to the world:

We have done no harm to you, nor do we mean you any harm. All
we ask is that we - -who want peace through justice be treated with
the respect due to a cultured people.

Thirteen years later, a completely broken Dr Frank had to
confess that not even by atoning during a thousand years could he
wipe out his share in the inexpressible horrors and bestialities
by which Germany's name lid become besmirched for all
time.

Quite understandably, German refugees fell easy prey to the
Communists: common persecution called for a united front, and

98

THE POLITICAL CASE

when Willi Munzenberg, Chief of the Communist 'Agitprop* in
Paiis, launched his 'anti-Fascist education campaign' he managed
to ensnare a vast number of genuine democrats.

THE POT AND THE KETTLE

In fact, the Communists and the Nazis were like two brothers
who had fallen out, swearing undying hatred to each other. Both
were firmly convinced that the struggle for power would continue
even after the Reichstag fire.

The Nazis were afraid, and rightly so, that if they failed to score
immediate and spectacular economic successes, many of their un-
employed and poverty-stricken converts -would lose faith and
desert en masse; die Communists, on the other hand, were counting
on the Nazis* inability to steer Germany off the rocks - they still
believed that Hitlerism was nothing but the brief death rattle of
capitalism.

When news of the Reichstag fire struck both camps like a bolt
from the blue, each immediately concluded that only the other was
cat

Not surprisingly therefore, each side was outraged when the
other, in ringing tones of indignation, unscrupulously laid *hg
crime at its door. While the Communists asked cui 60/10? and
pointed out that only because of this dastardly plot had the Nazis
been able to outlaw the otherwise 'unconquerable' Communist
Party, the Nazis explained that the Communists, knowing their
cause to be hopelessly lost unless they made some sort of spectacular
show, burned the Reichstag as a last act of desperation.

Tn addition, brown and red alike claimed mat hi am ing the fire on
the other was a certain way of swinging votes in the forthcoming
election.

The mirror symmetry between the two went further stilL Thus,
both Goring and the Communists claimed that the -red or brown-
incendiaries had fled the Reichstag through the underground
passage. Again, while the German, press called van der Lubbe a
Communist agitator, the Communist press called him a Nazi
spy.

In short, even Solomon the Wise would have had great difficulty
in deciding between the two, let alone the President of the Supreme
Court, Dr Biinger, whose wisdom fell far short of the proverbial

99

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

'ATROCITY PROPAGANDA' AND
'ANTI-ATROCITY DEFENCE'

This grotesque symmetry may perhaps explain -why both sides
became more and more ruthless as rime went by. The Communists
had the decided advantage over their opponents for they appeared
before the world as the champions of freedom and democracy.
Every sign of trouble, however slight, in the Third Reich was
systematically blown up to gigantic proportions, and when there
were no signs of trouble at all, the Communists would simply
manufacture

Incensed and full of righteous indignation, the Nazis hit back. On
14 July 1933, they passed a law by which the Government was
enabled to deprive 'disloyal' emigrants of their German citizenship
and to confiscate their property.

However, it would be quite wrong to say that German refugees
were the only detractors of Hitler's Third Reich, since a number of
foreign journalists had also been privileged to watch the power-
drunk brownshirts at work, and many of them - particularly those
who looked Jewish - had felt the brown jackboot at even closer
quarters. Thus it came about that even the most respected foreign
papers lent their columns to what the Nazis called 'anti-German
atrocity propaganda', and that Hitler and his henchmen came to be
held in contempt by civilized men the world over.

Because Germany continued to be in the news, the world press
sent its shrewdest and most capable reporters to Berlin. Meanwhile,
German papers were growing more and more colourless, so that
every German who could tried to get his news from, abroad and
particularly from Switzerland. The German circulation of foreign
papers rose so steeply that Goebbels became exceedingly nervous
and, as early as July 1933, he started to confiscate some of them and
to arrest or exp el their reporters.

Even before then, in March 193 3 , he had issued a warning against
'tendentious foreign reporting'. He claimed that, as a result, he had
been promised better behaviour in the future, when no such promise
was given by anyone.

Apart from press attacks, the German Government also had to
brave military attacks, which did not help to soothe tempers in the
Cabinet. Thus on 6 March 1933, Poland occupied the Westerplatte
off Danzig - a fact that is generally forgotten - and encouraged the

IOO

THE POLITICAL CASE

French and the British to use force as welL Luckily for Hitler, the
Western powers refused, in the mistaken belief that the collapse of
the Nazi Government was only a matter of weeks away.

At the same time, anti-Nazi processions and demonstrations
became a common sight in most European capitals. Demonstrators
would gather outside the German Consulates or Embassies, shout-
ing slogans, posting pickets, breaking windows, and disfiguring
walls.

More unpleasant still for the Hitler Government were the anti-
German boycotts and the constant attacks on Germany in the
British Houses of Parliament. Time after tim^ members protested
against acts of Nazi bestiality and political persecution, and the
British Government had a hard tim^ convincing a disgusted country
that, short of going to war, there was little they could do about it.

Though the Nazis tried to refute the charges against thm^ in the
end even Gocbbcls had to confess defeat.

MUNZENBERG'S ANTI-SWASTIKA
CRUSADE

It is mainly thanks to the recantations of ex-Communists that we
know anything at all about the Communist 'Agitprop' (Agitation
and Propaganda Department) in Paris, which spread anti-Fascist

~dlL - - - -

L with so much skill. Arthur Koestler, in particular, has
L irmrVi light on that charmed circle of Communist intellec-
tuals, whose central star was Willi Munzenberg, or the Red P.mi-
nence as some have called him. According to Koesder, Munzenberg
'was '. . . a magnetic personality of immense driving power and a
hard, seductive charm . . .'*

Margarcte Bubcr-Ncumann, Miinzenberg's sister-in-law, took
much the same view:

Probably no l^^itig German Communist was anything like as
sparkling as Munzenberg. . . . Most [of his collaborators] were under
the spdfof his forceful personality, and admired his ability to sub-
ordinate everything to his central purpose, no matter whether it was
collecting signatures from influential poets, artists and scientists, or the
organization of a relief eg*** paiff* 1 .*

As a young artisan, Willi Munzenberg, who came of a very
poor "working-class family in Erfurt, had moved to Switzerland
where he met a great manyrefugees from Tsarist Russia, including

IOI

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev. After the end of World War I,
Munzenberg, who had organized a number of successful strikes,
was repatriated by the worried Swiss.

Back in Germany, he quickly came into his own. He was one of
the founders of the German Young Communist League and was
sent as their delegate to the 'Workers' Fatherland* in 1920. He was
the brilliant organizer and leader of the 'International Workers* Aid
Association 7 , and the head of the huge Munzenberg Trust, -which
owned dailies and weeklies, illustrated journals, film companies and
publishing houses. At the age of forty-four Munzenberg became
one of the youngest Reichstag deputies.

On the evening of the Reichstag fire, chance threw Munzenberg
near the Swiss frontier - luckily for him, because he was one of the
Nazis' chief bites noires. He crossed into Switzerland where the
police dug up his old file, and caused him so much trouble that he
preferred to go on to Paris. In France, to which 25,000 of the
60,000 German refugees had fled, Munzenberg quickly established
his Comintern propaganda headquarters and launched his world-
wide anti-Fascist campaign, which, as Kocstler put it, was 'a unique
feat in the history of propaganda* :

This [World Committee] with its galaxy of international celebrities
became the hub of the crusade. Great care was taken that no Com-
munist - except for a few internationally known names such as Henri
Barbusse and J. B. S. Haldane - should be connected in public with the
Committee. But the Paris secretariat, which was running the Com-
mittee, was a purely Communist caucus, headed by Munzenberg and
controlled by the Comintern. Its offices were at first in the Rue
Mond&our near the Halles, and later at 83 Boulevard Montparnasse.
Mftnzenberg himself worked in a large room, within the World
Committee s premises, but no outsider ever learned about this. It was
as simple as that.*

Under the pretext of bringing relief to the victims of German
Fascism, the Committee danced to Moscow's tune - and so did a
great many other of Mimzenberg's Communist front organiza-
tions:

He [Mflnzenberg] produced International Committees, Congresses
and Movements as a conjurer produces rabbits out of his hat: the
Committee of Relief for the Victims of Fascism; Committees of
Vigilance and Democratic Control; International Youth Conresses
and so on. Each of these 'front organizations' had a panel of

102

THE POLITICAL CASE

respectable people, from English duchesses to American columnists
ana French savants, most of whom had never heard the name of
Mtinzenberg and thought that the Comintern was a bogy invented by
Goebbels.

Moreover:

He organized the Reichstag Counter-Trial - the public hearings in
Paris and London in 193 3 , which first called the attention of the world
to the monstrous happenings in the Third Reich. Then came the series
ofBroum Books, a flood of pamphlets and emigrt newspapers which he
financed and directed, though his name nowhere appeared.

Koesder goes on to tell how Munzenberg enterprises came to
'"assume 'truly dazzling proportions' :

He organized die Committee for Peace and against Fascism (the so-
called Amsterdam-Pleyel movement) presided over by Barbusse; the
Writers' Organization for the defence of Culture; the Committee of
Inquiry into alleged Breaches of the Non-Intervention Agreement on
Spain; and a series of other international mushroom growths. 5

Across the Atlantic, Ruth Fischer added hervoice:

During the depression years, 1929-1933, the Munzenberg Trust
burgeoned with every variety of anti-Fascist propaganda, with
ballyhoo for Russian culture, films, literature, science, scenery.
Progressives and liberals the world over, who wanted to join the fight
against Fascism, but were reluctant to join a political party, found a
haven in one of the numerous organizations MunzenDerg founded.
Of these the most important was the league against War an
(in the United States, it [the League] changed its name successively to
the American League for Peace and Freedom; in September 1939, to
Amgriran Peace Mobilization; in June 1941, to American People's
Mobilization; in April 1946, to National Committee to "Win the
Peace) which had the enthusiastic support of such prominent figures
as Edo Fimmen, the secretary of the international Transport Union,
and Ellen Wilkinson, a leader of the British Labour Party.'

Mimzenberg's Trojan horses proved so effective that his succes-
sors are still trying to copy his methods today. It was Munzenberg's
Paris office that spawned that gigantic forgery, the Oberfbhren
Memorandum, which took in practically the whole world. The
Memorandum proved dearly that even non-Communists could be
fooled very easily as long as the foolery was directed against the
common enemy - Hitler. 'It was as simple as that. 9

103

7- The Oberfohren Memorandum*

THE OBERFOHREN CASE

THE first published reference to the Oberfohren Memorandum
appeared in April 1933 in the first of two articles, in the Manchester
Guardian, on the Reichstag fire :

A confidential memorandum on the events leading up to the fire is
circulating in Germany . It is in manuscript, and the Terror makes any
mention or discussion of it impossible. But it is a serious attempt by
one in touch with the Nationalist members of the Cabinet to give a
balanced account of these events. In spite of one or two minor in-
accuracies, it shows considerable inside knowledge. While not
authoritative in an absolute and final manner it is at least a first and a
weighty contribution towards solving the riddle of that fire. 1

The Manchester Guardian's two articles, clearly based on this
'confidential memorandum 9 , and accusing the Nazis of firing the
Reichstag, aroused the bitter indignation of the Nazis :

Disgusting defamation of the German Government \>y English paper.
Berlin, April 2jth:

The P.ngli'gli Manchester Guardian has been guilty of slandering the
German Government in so shameless a way that a sharp protest has
been lodged with the British Government

In an article, entitled 'Germany in April 9 , which dealt with the
Reichstag fire in an extremely provocative and slanderous way, the
paper's so-called special correspondent has suggested that the incen-
diaries must be sought in the ranks of the German Cabinet, The
article further alleged, that a confidential memorandum on the fire is
being circulated in Germany. This brazen and baseless attack on the
* ItafuUtextofOtpqyofomA4m0^^

104

THE POLITICAL CASE

Government of a neighbouring state is without equal in the history of
any Western nation. The German Government considers the article
an act of unwarranted vilification and has, as we have already
mentioned, ordered the German Legation in London to lodge a sharp
protest against this kind of publication. 2

However, only one day later, Goebbels was presented with
yet another 'slanderous' article in the Manchester Guardian (see
Appendix B). That article, too, was based on the Oberfohren
Memorandum, and Goebbels replied with mounting fury:

Manchester Guardian continues its provocation.

The Liberal English Manchester Guardian continues its campaign of
slander against Germany's National Government, even though a
previous article forced the German Government to lodge a sharp
protest in London. Regarding the second article on the burning of the
Reichstag, official German sources today expressed their amazement
that a leading "Rngliah paper should open its columns to so monstrous a
vilification of a foreign power. It is known that a clandestine press of
the German Communist Party has been printing and drcuktang
deliberate lies about the Reichstag fire ever since the miAAfc of April
Oddly enough, these lying reports agree essentially with the articles
published in the Manchester Guardian.

Those of us who have followed the methods of the Communist
Party during die past years in various parts of the world know that
setting the Reichstag on fire is completely in their line of country.
Naturally, they now wish to blame tneir crime on a Government that
has proved their relentless enemy. The Manchester Guardian has
openly proclaimed itself a tool of the Communist propaganda
machine.

It is in fact surprising that the Manchester Guardian should have
allowed itself to pie taken in by the Memorandum .

Sefton Delmer, the London Daily Express correspondent, who
failed to report the Oberfohren affair to his paper, has explained:

My editor immediately wanted to know why I had not done the same.
So I pointed out that apart from other improbabilities contained in the
alleged Oberfohren document, I was particularly doubtful concerning
the validity of one of the ten points it put forward as proof of the Nazi
guilt. This 'point' was not in the Manchester Guardian version. But it
was contained in the copy of the document I had seen.

'I think you will agree with me that it rather undermines die
credibility of Herr Oberfohren's alleged revelations - if indeed he was

r. Tjstrn to this !' An^thffn T rea/1 "him thg passage.

105

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

'Hitler's constant companion and friend, the English journalist
Ddmer,' it said, 'telegraphed full details of die fire to his newspaper
before it was discovered, and the name of van der Lubbe as being the
culprit.'

The Editor agreed that perhaps we had not been scooped after all *

Nevertheless the Memorandum, soon to be published in English
by the so-called 'German Information Office in London and in
various other languages elsewhere, was widely regarded at the
time as important evidence of Nazi guilt. Even after the war, in his
report on the fire, Dr Wolff was to call it "The fullest and most
reliable report about the circumstances of the fire.' 4

The Memorandum gained credence in the first place because of
its supposed author's name. At the time the Nationalists, under the
leadership of Hugenberg, were still in uneasy coalition with the
Nazis. As chairman of the Nationalist deputies in the Reichstag,
and because of his supposed dose contact with Hugenberg, Dr
Oberfohren might well DC assumed to know the true inner story.

We shall therefore have to consider whether Oberfohren was
indeed the author of the Memorandum, and also whether he was in
fact on such dose terms with Hugenberg as he was supposed to be.

Then we shall have to consider the credibility of the Memoran-
dum itself. Its allegations about the fire have never received factual
corroboration from any other source, but it also purports to give
the JTifuqr story of various events l^^ing up to the fire and shortly
after it. As we shall see, its account of these matters not only
conflicts with a great deal of credible evidence, but also contains a
number of significant inherent improbabilities. An examination of

these parts ot the Memorandum will show us how little credence
can be given to its uncorroborated statements about the fire.

Dr Ernst Oberfohren was a doctor of political science who, at the
age of forty-three, had decided to abandon his teaching post in
Kiel and to devote himself instead to politics. At the end of 1929,
when Hugenberg became the national leader of the German
Nationalist Party, Oberfohren was appointed its Parliamentary
leader.

According to the Brown Book, as a confidant of Hugenberg's, he
was fully informed of all that went on in the Cabinet. He set down
in a memorandum what he knew of the preparations for the burn-

ium to his friends. 5

106

THE POLITICAL CASE

But did Oberfohren, in fact, continue to enjoy Hugenberg's
confidence after Hitler became Chancellor?

At the end of March 1933, the news that Oberfohren had
resigned his seat caused a great deal of public speculation. The Nazi
press reported the matter with suspicious brevity. A number of
reasons were put forward for his resignation. One historian has said
that he differed with Hugenberg over the Party's relationship to the
National Socialists; a newspaper article claimed that there was
disagreement within the German Nationalist Party on the
monarchist issue, while another paper said Oberfohren's reasons
were purely personal.

During a Nationalist caucus meeting on n April 1933, the leader
of the Party, Hugenberg, also dealt with the Oberfohren case.
According to the coTn.mnn.iqu6 issued by the German Nationalist
Press Agency, he explained that 'as everyone present knows,
Oberfohren was opposed to the policy the Party adopted on 30
January'. 6

Needless to say, this communique* by Hugenberg makes
nonsense of the Brown Book's claim that Obcrfohren continued to
enjoy Hugenberg's confidence even after Hitler came to power.

At the same caucus meeting Hugenberg gave the real reasons
for his break with Oberfohren. This is how the press reported the
matter:

He [Hugenberg] said he felt compelled to disclose a number of un-
pleasant facts to the caucus. The Prussian authorities had, without his
knowledge, raided the house of Dr Oberfohren's Berlin secretary,
-who had made a formal declaration to the effect that two of the
circulars whtrh \xrM-f. fminA Ky tfi^polir^ anA wViirVi attacked the Party
Chairman [Hugenberg] had been composed by Dr Oberfohren and
sent out on his orders. Dr Hugenberg was informed of this declaration,
and ma/le Tif? contents of the circular known to the Parliamentary
Party. ... Ttinmff^iaf/*1y afterwards, Dr Oberfohren resigned ni g
seat without any explanation. . . . 7

There had obviously been a severe rift in the Nationalist Party.
According to Dr Sack:

Oberfohren killed himself because he was unmasked as a traitor to his
Party leader Hugenberg, and because he saw the game was up. All
these facts, however, were kept from the outside world, and that is
why the so-called Oberfohren Memorandum was accepted as an

10?

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

authoritative document, though, only after Obcrfohren himself was
no longer there to disclaim it. 8

Obcrfohren' s resignation caused a scandal, but the news of his
suicide became a world sensation. One of the earliest reports was
published in the Hannoverscher Anzeiger on 8 May 1933 :

On Sunday, the fifty-thrce-year-old former German Nationalist
Deputy, Dr Oberfohren, shot himself in his own home.

We learn that Oberfohren took his life at about twelve o'clock,
before lunch, when his wife was not at home. The cause seems to be a
conflict with his Party.

The very next day the German Nationalist Press Agency sent
out the following correction:

Hie death of Dr Oberfohren, which has shocked everyone who had
worked with him in the German Nationalist Party , has led a section of
the press to publish speculations which are quite incorrect, inajg-mtich
as they associate Dr Oberfohren's death with the treatment meted out
to him by the German Nationalist Party. We are therefore forced to
publish a letter which Dr Oberfohren addressed to Dr Hugenberg on
April 1 2th:

Dear Dr Hugenberg,

I have been told that despite all the trouble between us you could
still speak up for me at a caucus meeting. This forces me to admit
quite freely now wrongly I have acted. I sincerely regret the great
damage my actions have done the Party. I can only add that it is my
firm conviction that the [circular] letters were badly misused. I
myself have suffered almost superhuman agonies during the last
few weeks. Even before then, the course of political events almost
overwhelmed me. My nerves are completely frayed, and I cannot
bear the thought of further disputes. I beg you to forget the whole
business, if only for the sake of our common struggles in the past.
Herr Stein [Adolf Stein, the journalist] was kind enough to assure
me that you would lend a ready ear to so open a recantation.

Although that letter ought to have proved to even the most
confirmed sceptic that Oberfohren killed himself because he was
caught trying to alter the ominous course of Nationalist Party
politics by intrigue, the Communist legend that his suicide was
connected with the Reichstag fire has persisted to this day. In vain
did his widow, Frau Eda Oberfohren, declare:

108

THE POLITICAL CASE

My husband was not killed by the Nazis. However, he felt he had
become the object of a campaign of persecution, and realizing that the
Nazi dictatorship was bound to lead to disaster for Germany and her
people, he committed suicide in black despair. 9

A similar view was expressed by a Social-Democratic journalist,
who called on Oberfohren at his Kiel home on 3 May 1933, shortly
after Oberfohren's return from a sanatorium:

Oberfohren was quite alone, for he wanted to keep his wife out of all
the scandaL

'Everything is hopeless,' Oberfohren cried whenever I mentioned
the possibility of his standing up to the dictatorship. He was, in fact,
a completely broken man.

'Everything is hopeless, 9 he repeated.

He had pleaded with Hugenberg, he told me, but Hugenberg
deluded himself that the Nazis could be taught better.

Then he told me about the embarrassing police raids on his homes in
Kiel atiA Berlin, the interrogations and **fe countless threats he h?H
received. He prophesied the complete victory of bestiality.

'If it were not for my wife, I mould have killed myself long ago.
Because ... we shan't see happy days again. What is happening now is
merely thg overture. Things are bound to get TmvrT^ worse.'

Three days later, Oberfohren was dead ! 10

Oberfohren's real downfall had been his own weakness, his lack
of courage when, instead of following the light of political reason
and breaking; openly with Hugenberg, he preferred the question-
able method ofsencung out anonymous circulars.

THE REAL AUTHORS

Shortly after the fire, the exiled Central Committee of the
German Communist Party published a pamphlet with the title:
The Reichstag is in Flames ! Who are the Tnccridiaries?' According
to Dr Sack, Torgler's counsel,

... its approach, style and presentation were highly reminiscent of the
so-called Oberfohren Memorandum. With some imagination and a
great deal of ill wfll, this pamphlet became the basis of a crude forgery.
All that was mitring was a good author, and he was found on
Oberfohren's death."

Whereas the German edition of the resulting Memorandum
>hiyqfi Tiim<egl-f the author, the English edition explained:

109

THB REICHSTAG FIRE

So lie [Dr Oberfohren] inspired a journalist to write a memor-
andum on me Reichstag fire, he himself supplying most of the
necessary information. This is the now famous 'Oberfbhren Memor-
andum 9 .

The reason for this difference was explained by Dr Sack, who
attended the London Counter-Trial in September 1933 -just in
time to hear Professor Georg Bernhard and Rudolf Breitscheid
agree that '. . . while the so-called Oberfohren Memorandum
might reflect Oberfohren's political views, he would never have
used that particular style'.

In fact, the German text of the Memorandum was written by an
uneducated hack, and could not possibly have stemmed from the
pen of Dr Oberfohren, who had studied at the Universities of
Berlin, Bonn and KieL

So much for the authorship ; what about the contents?

One of the 'minor inaccuracies' referred to by the Manchester
Guardian which was later incorporated into Broum Book I, p. 130,
was the claim that the Nazi posse alleged to have burned the
Reichstag was led by the notorious Storm Troop leader Heines.
In fact, Heines spent the night of the fire at an election meeting in
far-away Gleiwitz, as he was able to establish to the Supreme
Court's entire satisfaction. 12

Moreover the various editions of the Memorandum contain a
number of major differences - a circumstance that does not speak
highly for its authenticity. Nor are these differences due to im-
provements in style or corrections of linguistic errors, for all the
changes have obvious political motives. Under the threadbare
German Nationalist cloak, the red tunic blazes forth quite un-
mistakably.

If we analyse the Memorandum carefully, we discover the
following main theses:

(1) The Nazis broke German Nationalist opposition in the
Cabinet to the prohibition of the Communist Party by planting

incriminating documents anrl arms in the TTarl Licbknecht House,

the Communist Party Headquarters ;

(2) The Nazis burned the Reichstag as a pre-election stunt and as
an excuse for a putsch.

Regarding the claim that the Nationalists in the Cabinet were
opposed to Hitler's antir-Coromunist measures, Torgler's counsel,
Dr Sack, had this to say :

no

THE POLITICAL CASE

The Cabinet had no differences whatever of die land mentioned
Memorandum. It was not the National Socialists who urged die
prohibition of the Communist Party, but the German Nationalists
themselves. The further allegation that the German Nationalists
were against the prohibition ox the Communist Party in order to
prevent an absolute Nazi majority, runs counter to the general view
taken by most foreign observers, according to whom the election
prospects of the Nazis were bad. In that case, the prohibition of the
Communist Party could not possibly have benefited the Nazis, but
would have strengthened the Social Democrats. In other words, the

combined size of the opposition would have remained the same

Had they wanted an absolute majority, the Nazis would have left the
Communist voters severely alone, and later disqualified their
deputies. 18

Even more preposterous was the allegation that the Nazis had
planted large quantities of inrriminating material in th* Karl
liebknecht House. First of all, they could only have done so with
the active support of a large number of policemen, and particularly
of Police President Admiral von Levetzow, a staunch Nationalist,
when the idea was allegedly to deceive the Nationalist Party.
Secondly, the raid was first mooted, not by the Nazis, but by
Superintendent Reinhold Heller, a policeman of the old school.
Thirdly, the material could only have been planted if the Karl
Liebknecht House had been deserted or closed beforehand by the
police. In fact, the place was full of people at the time of the raid as
the following article in a Communist paper showed:

Karl Liebknecht House raided again

Yesterday the karl Liebknecht House was raided by the police once
again. All those present had to leave the building, and a number of
comrades were arrested. The police also raided the Communist Press
Agency and confiscated the edition ofFebruary 23rd. 14

No w, this article gave the lie to the whole story, for even had the
police managed to smuggle the material in under the vigilant eyes
of the Communist officials, they could not possibly have hidden it
away in special caches during a fairly short raid. Here is Sommer-
feldt's description of the finds:

Tlie first secret cache was discovered in the cellar, and, of all places, in
the shower and -washrooms. In one of the last cubicles on the court-
yard side the police found a secret door, tiled over to look like the

III

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

other walls. This cubicle was ostensibly used for keeping supplies of
towels, etc., for which purpose the walls and the secret door had been
fitted with screw-on shelves. Now, one of the screws -was, in fact, part
of a secret lock: by removing it and introducing a fairly long screw-
driver into the hole, one could press against a secret spring mechanism
and unlock the door. The back of the door was bricked over so that it
would sound solid. The door led into a room, some 16 ft. by 6 J ft.,
without any windows but provided with an electric light. Here the
police found a small number of weapons, whose presence fully
corroborated the widespread belief that the Karl Liebknecht House
was stocked with arms for warding off surprise attacks.

Criminologists wondered whether these weapons were intended
purely for defensive purposes or for equipping Communist shock
troops. In the ground floor windows the large display shelves had been
replaced with boxes which, at first glance, looked like the original
shelves. They were heavy, had been nailed experdy and hooped, and
were stuffed with compressed newspapers. Any soldier would have
considered this type of box a kind of sandbag, behind which one
could easily cover the entire Bulow Platz with machine-guns. This
view was corroborated by the caretaker of the Karl Liebknecht House,
the Communist Vorpahl:

'The boxes were T^a<fc by a carpenter at the end off anuary, working
partly in the courtyard and partly in a garage behind the courtyard.
A few' days later, I saw the boxes in the windows of the Karl Lieb-
knecht House bookshop. As far as I know, theseboxes were intended as
barricades. They were so placed in the display windows that one could
just sec across them. They were built a few weeks before die Reichstag
fire.'

The proof that the boxes were not built before the end of January,
wasprovided by another incontrovertible fact: the Communists had
stuffed them full of newspapers dated late January. The Central Office
in the Karl Leibknecht House could not have shown more clearly that
they were considering an armed uprising at the beginning of 1933,
with the Karl Liebknecht House as one ofthek military strongpoints.

A second cache was reached through the goods lift in the courtyard.
In order to get to it, the lift had to be taken down to the cellar, where
the rear wallof the lift could be opened by a mechanical device. It gave
into a room in which a wooden boarding, some 8 ft. by 5 ft., had been
fixed between two pillars to form a secret cupboard. The cupboard
itsel which was locked, contained about twenty bundles of important
documents, some dated 1933.

Further well-hidden caches were discovered on die fourth floor, in a
suite of rooms previously used by the Central Committee. These

THE POLITICAL CASE

caches were reached by the removal of window sills. They, too,
contained important documents.

Similar caches were also discovered on the third floor, the former
Berlin-Brandenburg district headquarters. These caches were
intended for the sudden 'disappearance 9 of important Party documents
during sudden police raids. 16

Sommcrfcldt's text was illustrated with a large number of

photographs. La short, the claim that material was planted in the

empty' Karl liebknecht House seems to have just about as much

substance in fact as the story about Nationalist opposition to the

proscription of the Communist Party.

Now, who was interested in malnng these false claims? Surely
not the Nationalist parliamentarian, Oberfohren, who, thougn
appalled by bis Party s alliance with Hitler, was as opposed to the
Communists as he was to the Nazis ! The very feet that the Com-
munist Party was given so much prominence in the Memorandum
shows clearly that neither Oberfohren nor any other German
Nationalists could possibly have been its authors - German
Nationalists were far too worried about other matters to give more
than a fleeting thought to an anti-Communist raid*

THE ALLEGED NAZI PUTSCH

As for the thesis that the Nazis had planned a putsch for the
night of 5-6 March (Oberfohren Memorandum, p. p), it was so
far-fetched that subsequent Communist accounts of the fire
usually omitted it altogether. In fact the whole story, together
with that of a Nationalist counter-putsch, came straight out of
Munzenberg's head.

On i March 1933, the VdlkischerBeobachter published the follow-
ing story:

We learn from official sources that, among the vast quantities of
material discovered in the Earl Liebknecht House, the police also
found orders with the forged signatures of high police officers and

leaders of the S. A. and the S. S It is known that the evil genius

behind these forgeries is the notorious Communist editor
Mfinzenberg, who is still at large.

These sham S. A. orders were mentioned at length in GSring's
radio address on i March:

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

In addition, numerous forged orders of the Storm Detachment and
Stahlhelm leaders were found, in "which the Storm Detachment were
directed secredy to hold themselves in readiness for the night of March
6th in order to occupy Berlin, and they were to he prepared to use
their arms and beat down all resistance, etc. These forged orders were
then to he circulated to the authorities and among the citizens in order
to create the fear of a National Socialist putsch. 16

Goring returned to this question when he gave evidence to the
Supreme Court on 4 November 193 3 :

Tlioe forged reports were sent first of all to President von Hinden-
burg with the polite comment that he, too, was to be removed on that
occasion [the S.A. uprising on 5 March]. They were also sent to
Minister Hugenberg, to the Stahlhelm and to the Reichswehr. They
were even sent to me, with the impertinent suggestion that the Storm
Troopers wanted to seize complete power, anothat they intended to
do away with the police and the Ministry of the Interior. Clearly these
forgeries, though sometimes clumsy, were often devilishly clever.
. . . One object was to incite the S.A. against their own leaders by
suggesting to them, 'Why on earth don't you act on your own? 9 In
other words, they [the orders] were an important and dangerous part
of a well-planned propaganda campaign

Although we might be inclined to dismiss Goring's story as a
simple attempt to whitewash himself after the event, there is, in
fact, strong evidence that he was speaking the truth. This, for
instance, is how Storm Troop Leader Karl Ernst described the
forged orders in his inimitably stilted style :

As the official leader of S. A. Detachment Berlin-East, I was shown a
yellow carbon copy by Herr RcJchsminister Goring. It was alleged to
be a copy of an order issued by me to the 8,000 men of my detachment.

Asked officially to swear on my honour -whether or not I had ever
issued that order, I was forced to say no, if only because such un-
mitigated rubbish could not possibly have been committed to paper
by any S. A. leader ; and secondly because the National-Socialist Party
fellows none but the orders of the Fuhrer Viim<u^1f t who sets out all the
steps to be taken to his corps of group leaders, in clear and unmistak-
able terms. Either the supreme S. A. leader gives the marrViing order
and everyone obeys, or else there is no march at all, for no one in the
German Freedom Movement ever marches out of step.

Again, from the purely tactical point of view, the order, logic, and
sequence of the forgery attributed to me have been so incompetently
botched that I would blush had I to sign such utter driveL Theheading

114

THE POLITICAL CASE

of the 'order' is quite out of keeping -with the usual S. A. procedure, so
that it alone was bound to cause laughter. The same is true of the
salutation*

Every order must be signed by the leader of the detachment, and
not, as in this case, vouched for by someone with the name of Tetra,
purloined from German mythology, and who was certainly never on
my staff. The reference number has obviously been improvised, for
my staffhad never had a Division 22, a number which has been placed
before the date.

If people forge documents, they ought at least to aim at malring a
credible impression. Now, even if we take the most favourable view
of the work of these amateurs, we can adduce no evidence in their
favour or in favour of their expert knowledge.

If I am further blamed because a Herr Wels from the Social
Democratic Party has taken the trouble of blaming these ridiculous
orders on an S. A. leader, all I can say is that Herr Wels, belonging as
he does to a Party that is inimical to Germany's military honour, might
be expected to come out with such allegations, though no one in good
feitfi ran tell me that Herr Wels himself believes in the validity of his
rlaim. No doubt he took prior advice from a party comrade familiar
with military matters, and then had the impertinence to dish up this
'alarming document 9 in feigned surprise and horror.

I accuse the Social Democratic Deputy Wels before German public
opinion not only of belonging to a discredited party, but also of
Lging in the vilest form of political struggle: the forgery of a
" al document in order to incriminate an opponent, to decry him
: his compatriots and then to accuse him of incompetence in a
sphere of which this rabble-rouser [Herr Wels] himself knows
absolutely nothing. If Herr Wels wishes to refute this accusation (and
nothing could be further from his mind!) all he has to do is to submit
to the Reich President the original of this forged report, of which only
a copy is at present available. 17

With their story of dissension in the Nationalist camp, the
Communists merely helped Hider to re-arm -while the foreign
powers sat by, waiting confidently for an internecine massacre.
But the Communist story had no substance in fact.

On 6 March. 1933, for instance, when Sefton Delmer, the Berlin
correspondent of the Daily Express, told Hider that the wave of
arrests in Germany had caused rumours to spread both in Berlin and
abroad that he was planning a great slaughter of his enemies, Hitler
replied:

I need no St Bartholomew's Night. Under die decrees for the Defence

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

of the People and the State we have set up tribunals which will try
enemies ofthe state and deal with them in away which will put an end
to conspiracies.

In any case there was little, if any, tension between Hidcr and the
Army. We have more than Hitler's own word for this - we know
that General von Blomberg was anything but the anti-Nazi hero of
the Oberfohren Memorandum: he was, in fact, one of Hitler's
keenest admirers. 18

Nor did Blomberg threaten to arrest Hitler, Goring, Goebbels
and Prick, or to occupy public buildings, as the Oberfohren
Memorandum claims. Moreover, in the spate of reminiscences
published by officers of the Reichswehr since the war, there is
not a single mention of any of the acts of resistance described
in the Memorandum. It is amusing to learn from the alleged Nazi
*plan f in the Memorandum that Hitler would have been satisfied
with the office of Reich President, leaving the far more important
office of Chancellor to Goring. His later actions, particularly after
Hindenburg's <fcatb, proved clearly how averse he was to snaring
power with anyone eke.

In short, the Oberfohren Memorandum was a tissue of Com-
munist lies, and the most remarkable thing about it is that it
managed - and continues even today - to take in eminent scholars
when its sole and transparent purpose was to pave the way for
Miinzenberg's masterpiece : The Brawn Book ofthe Hitler Terror and
the Burning ofthe Reichstag.

116

8. The London Counter-trial

THE SIXTH DEFENDANT: THE BROWN
BOOK

THE Brown Book's very title was a brilliant stroke : it suggested the
book was an official document, a kind of White Paper in disguise.
To publish it and si-mil??- material, JMiinzenberg specially founded
the Editions du Carrefbur', in Paris.

In Alfred Kantorowicz's reminiscences about the preparation of
the Brown Book, we read :

The world at large learned of the history of this fire and of the true
incendiaries from ihcBroum Book of the Hitler Tenor and the Burning of
the Reichstag, which contained a complete and irrefutable body of
evidence, since then supplemented by captured Nazi documents, on
t-hig worldshaking criminal case.

In Paris, all this evidence was . . . carefully sifted, carefully checked,
and put into order by a group of well-known writers and journalists,
including Andr Simone, Alexander Abusch, Max Schrocdcr,
Ruddlf Furth, and the author of this report. The Brown Book is not a
pamphlet, but a collection of documents. 1

Just how carefully this 'collection of documents' was assembled
is best gathered, not from Kantorowicz, but from Arthur Koestler :

But how could we make the naive West believe such a fantastic story ?
We had no direct proo no access to witnesses, only underground
gf>TnTr\vini{rariorig to Germany. V/c IhflHj in fkct, not tlig faintest idea of
the concrete circumstances. We had to rely on guesswork, on
bluffing, and on the intuitive knowledge of die methods and minrl* of
our opposite numbers in totalitarian conspiracy. The 'we* in this
context refers to the Comintern's propaganda headquarters in Paris,
camouflaged as the 'World Committee for the Rd^of the Victims of
German Fascism'.*

The real authors of die Brown Book preferred to hide behind the
noble name of Lord Marley, whom no one could have called a
suspicious Red. However, as the former Communist Reichstaj
Deputy Maria Reese, who knew both Miinzenberg and ~

117

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Marley, has since explained, Lord Marley's real contribution was
restricted to the loan of his tide. It was as simple as that. 9
Kocstler continues his account as follows :

The book contained the first comprehensive report on the German
concentration camps (including statistics and lists of victims), on th^
persecution of thejews, the repression of literature, and other aspects
of the terror. The documentation had been assembled by the
Comintern's intelligence apparatus. The Brown Book further contained
the 'complete inside story of the fire, starting with a detailed bio-
graphy or Lubbe, unearthed by the Apparat in Holland, his contacts
witn *h^ homosexual circles around the leader of tTift Brownshirts,
Captain Roehm, and ending with a convincing description ofhow the
incendiaries penetrated into tV^ Reichstag through tne underground
tunnel Several direct participants in the action were named: Count
HeUdorff; S.A. Leaders Heincs and Schultz. All this was based on
isolated scraps of information, deduction, guesswork, and brazen
bluff. The only certainly we had was that some Nazi circles had some-
how contrived to buni down the building. Eveiydung else wa^
in the dark.

According to a former confidant and political friend of Miinzen-
berg, Erich Wollenberg, Miinzenberg told him in Paris

. . . thaj in view of the panic which seized large masses of the German
people after the Reichstag fire, he was forced to include a great deal of
fantasy and invention which - lilre the alleged association between
van dcr Lubbc and Ernst Roehm - were soon completely refuted.

Miinzenberg also told him that '. . . all these inventions were
sworn to by witnesses before the so-called London Counter-
Trial...^

Koesder describes his own share in the preparation of the Brown
as follows:

My part in it was a subordinate one. I had to follow the repercussions
of the trial and of our own propaganda in the British press and in the
House of Commons, to study the current of British public opinion,
and draw the appropriate tactical conclusions. For a -while I also edited
the daily bulletins which we distributed to the French and British
press.

These daily bulletins were swallowed by most of the bourgeois
press, with few exceptions. One such was the Morning Post which

118

THE POLITICAL CASE

suggested that the real identity of the authors emerged during the
reading of the very first chapter.

Somebody else, too, had reservations - a man -who knew
Miinzenberg and his methods as well as anyone. When Ernst
Torgler was handed the Brown Book in prison, he felt 'a litde
shaken':

I had never thought the whole thing had been so simple. Van der
Lubbe an old acquaintance of Roehm and on his list of catamites?
Could Goebbds really have planned the fire, and could Gdring,
standing, as it were, at the entrance of the underground tunnel, realty
have supervised the whole thing? 4

Unencumbered by bourgeois inhibitions, Miinzenberg even
proclaimed Einstein one of the book's sponsors. This immediately
prompted Goebbds to wield his poison pen :

Einstein in Trouble
Berlin, September 6th.

Under the presidency of die notorious hack-writer and Com-
munist, Albert Einstein, a so-called Brown Book against the Hitler
Terror has recently been published. Two days after this forgery
appeared, Herr F.instrin was forced to disown his own literary
creation. There seems no doubt that Einstein's denial was prompted by-
sheer panic, for nothing can disguise his personal responsibility.
Numerous foreign papers, as well as the anonymous authors of the
book, continue to hide behind Einstein's authority. During earlier
discussions by the so-called World Committee for the Victims of
German Fascism it was unanimously claimed that the book was a
publication by "Ringtrfu and "hi* circle.

One of Einstein's recent biographers, Catherine Owens Peare,
tells how Einstein tried in vain to protest that he had absolutely no
connection with the book, and that he had not even been told
about its impending publication.

In fact, Miinzenberg used names very freely, and the Nazis, quite
impotent in the face of this onslaught from abroad, vented their
rage on what friends and dependents of their detractors they
could lay their hands on. Impotent rage was the reason why they
threw five relatives of ex-Chancellor Philipp Schciftomann into
concentration camps, as Must retribution* for a "slanderous article'
Scheidemann had published abroad (Vdlkischer Beobochter, 15 July
1933); impotent rage drove them into launching an anti-Jewish

119

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

boycott on I April 193 3 ; impotent rage dictated most of their press
and radio communiques.

Now this is precisely -what Miinzenberg wanted. The world
came to believe that a Government capable of reacting in this way
was also capable of committing the vilest crimes, even those
invented in Munzenberg's Paris Agitprop* office.

THE LONDON COUNTER-TRIAL

After his great success in harnessing good liberals as 'Trojan
horses' to the Bolshevik cart, Willi Miinzenberg, the inventive
Ulysses from Thuringia, hit upon another brilliant propaganda
idea. He remembered the secret revolutionary courts of pre-war
Russia, and decided to transplant them to London. The World
Committee for the Victims of German Fascism was quickly turned
into a 'Commission of Inquiry into the Burning of die Reichstag 9 ,
presided over by an 'International Committee of Jurists and
Technical Experts'. In practice, these experts were recruited on
Comintern recommendation. The men in question inter-
nationally famous lawyers of liberal opinion, one and all - would
one day receive a flattering letter inviting them to serve as im-
partial members on a committee investigating Nazi atrocities.
Those who agreed to serve and who were finally selected were:

Dr Betsy Bakker-Nort (Holland)
Maitre Gaston Bergery (France)
Mr Georg Branting (Sweden)
Mr Arthur Garfidd Hays (U.SJL)
Mr Vald Hvidt (Denmark)
Maitre de Moro-Giafferi (France)
Mr D. N. Pritt, K.C. ffingland)
Maitre Pierre Vennjcylen (Belgium)

None of the Committee members was a Communist; all were
respectable citizens. To this day, some of these honourable men
have still not understood with what devilish skill Miinzenberg and
his pupils diverted their willingness to serve humanity into purely
Communist rh^-n^. This is particularly true of the Chairman, the
then forty-six-year-old K.C., Denis Nowell Pritt. In 1957, at the
age of seventy, Pritt was given the freedom of the city of Leipzig,
as a 'prominent member of the World Peace Movement*.

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THE POLITICAL CASE

Originally, the Munzenberg Trust had appealed to a number of
leading American jurists, including the famous lawyer (later Judge) ,
Samuel S. Leibowitz of New York, Leo Gallagher of Los Angeles,
Edward Levenson ofPhiladdphia, and also Paul Gravath, Clarence
Darrow, and Felix Frankfurter of New York. In England, they had
appealed not only to Pritt but also to Neil Lawson and many
others; in France they had turned to Maltres Henri Torr&, C&ar
Campinchi, Marcel Villard, and Vincent de Moro-Giafferi. Further
they had invited Dr van 't Hoff-Stokk (Holland), Adolphe Jaegl6
(Strasbourg) and the advocates Soudan, Graux, and Brafiort
(Belgium). Of all these, only Pritt and Moro-Giafferi ended up on
the final list.

The American member, Arthur Garfield Hays, was to have the
unique experience of seeing through both smoke screens - the red
as well as the brown. In July 193 3 , Hays had just finished a dramatic
case, and, as he tells us, had no plans for the immediate future, when
to his utter surprise he received a telegram from Edward Levenson,
an American lawyer. The telegram, which had been sent from
Moscow, read:

GEORGI DEMTTROV CHARGED wrm COMPLICITY IN REICHSTAG FIRE. HIS
MOTHER REQUESTS YOU DEFEND SON AS WELL AS OTHER COMMUNIST DE-
FENDANTS BEFORE GERMAN REICHSGERICHT. CHARGE IS A VICIOUS FRAME-
UP AGAINST INNOCENT MEN. YOUR HKT.P NEEDED. TRIAL SEPTEMBER.

Hays cabled back: *I shall be glad to join in defence provided
German Government permits. Please bear in mind I am a Jew/

Today Hays admits honestly that he can no longer teU whether
his acquiescent reply was due to his emotional reaction at the time,
a desire for change, or perhaps a thirst for adventure.

Hays - who was born in 1881 in the State of New York -was a
most successful lawyer of liberal views. He was legal adviser to the
American Civil Liberties Union, and one of the defence lawyers in
the Sacco-Vanzetti trial. He could well aflbrd to forgo fees, when
the need arose, and had done so on a number of occasions. All these
reasons must have made him appear an excellent choice to
Munzenberg.

How very difficult the role was which Munzenberg expected the
various members of his Commission to play is shown by the
example of Georg Branting of Sweden, to whom the German
Public Prosecutor wrote die following letter on 10 August 193 3 :

121

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Since - despite public appeals for information that might throw light
on the matter and despite the offer of a very high reward for any
information leading to the apprehension of the culprits - we have
received no evidence beyond that set forth in the Indictment, and
since the Court is extremely anxious to base its verdict on all the
available facts, I should be most grateful to you if you would kindly
let me know what documentary evidence the Commission has in its
possession. I should be most obliged if you would reply at your earliest
convenience, and ifyou could also let me have the names and addresses
of any witnesses of the Reichstag fire, who might feel obliged, and
who are willing, to appear before the Supreme Court.

Since even the worst lawyer must have realized that, compared
with the boastful claims of the Committee, the evidence was
extremely tenuous, Branting's reply to the Public Prosecutor
(18 August 1933) was full of evasions:

The best and most convincing evidence is futile if it may not be used to
exonerate the defendant.

I am not entitled to hand over documents at my own discretion, but
I have no doubt *Vat tVi^ Commission of Inquiry ... 'will ^>anH th^m
over to counsel for the defence as soon as adequate guarantees are
given that the accused will enjoy unrestricted legal representation.

As a result, Drs Sack, Seuffert, and Teichert, all of whom felt
completely 'unrestricted* , turned to the Commission and requested
a sight of die famous evidence, but all in vain. Dr Sack even flew to
Paris and later to London so as to leave no stone unturned in the
defence of his client Torgler. In Paris, he and his assistants, Dr Hans
Jung and Dr Kurt Wersig had a conference lasting five hours with
"Brant-ing, Leo Gallagher and an 'Austrian journalist' who called
himself Breda' but who was none other than Otto Katz, Miinzen-
berg's chief lieutenant. When Dr Sack asked to see what evidence
there was exonerating his client Torgler, he was told by Branting
and his colleagues that they were not entitled to disclose the address
of the attorneys to whom the material had been handed for safe
keeping.

Tmtrad of 'entitled' they ought to have said 'able', for the
material never existed. Why else should they have made such a
mystery of the whole business? For even if the Commission did not
trust the German Supreme Court or its advocates with the material
itself, there was no reason why photostats should not have been

122

THE POLITICAL CASE

handed over, or published in the foreign press. Why then did the
Commission agree to a conference with Dr Sack? Dr Sack and his
colleagues soon discovered the real reason - it was to get in-
formation out of them. Disappointed, Dr Sack returned to Berlin on
9 September.

On ii September 1933, 15,000 people crowded into the Salle
Wagram in response to an appeal which the Munzenberg Trust
had plastered all over Paris. The chief speaker was the French
advocate and deputy Maitre Vincent oe Moro-Giafferi, who
referred to his exhaustive study of all the documents bearing on the
Reichstag fire, and who roused the audience to near-frenzy when
he shouted : 'It is you, Goring, who are the real assassin and the real

incen

idiary!

It was certainly not mere solidarity with Goring that prompted
Dr Sack to make the following objection: 'He [Moro-Giafferi] had
seen neither the result of the preliminary examination nor the
indictment (which, in cases of high treason, must be kept secret
according to German law), yet this did not seem to weigh heavily
on hi* legal conscience. 9

A few months later, on 4 November 1933, Goring, whom Moro-
Giafferi had denounced with so much emotion, followed suit when
he, too, anticipated the Supreme Court verdict with: 'My sixth
sense tells me that the fire was started by the Communists/

Meanwhile Arthur Garfield Hays, accompanied by his daughter
Jane, had arrived in Paris. In the H&tel Mirabeau he was met by 'a
self-effacing, apparently bewildered little lawyer who introduced
himself as M. Stephan Detscheff, avocat bulgare" '. With the help
of an interpreter, Hays managed to find out that the avocat re-
presented a committee of Bulgarians for the defence of Dimitrov,
Popov and Tanev.

I tried to find out who constituted the committee and asked : 'Who is
the committee?' Answer: 'We*. I made further inquiry: 'Who are
we?* Answer: *A group of people interested in defending these
innocent men/ 'What group of people?* The answer came back:
'Our Committee.' I gave up.

We can sympathize with DetschefFs reserve. Such unwelcome,
inquisitive questions were not wanted, and were, in any case, rarely
asked, for tneir 'panel of brilliant names' usually protected the
Committee against any awkward questions.

123

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

In Paris, Hays also met his French colleague, Maitre de Moro-
GiafferL 'My conference with him was unsatisfactory. . . One could
not confer with him; one just listened. His rapid-firing comments
did not even permit interruption for translation by my secretary/ 5

With how little real knowledge Hays was expected to serve on
the Committee is best shown by the fact that he arrived in Europe
just one day before the beginning of the Counter-Trial and without
any detailed briefing. He ought to have suspected straightaway
that the Committee was far less concerned with his legal ability,
than with using his name,

On 14 September 193 3 , the London Counter-Trial was formally
opened in the courtroom of the Law Society. The inaugural address
was delivered by Sir Stafford Cripps, to an audience including such
famous men as H. G. Wells. Shaw, too, had been invited but he had
declined with the remark: 'Whenever a prisoner is used as a stick
with which to beat a Government, his fate is sealed in advance.' 6

The whole trial was carefully staged with the 'bench' ranged on
one side of the room. One of the judges' was Moro-Giafferi of
whom Dr Sack had this to say:

Legally-trained observers were unpleasantly surprised when they saw
Moro-Giafferi. on tb ft bench. Four days earlier, tnia French lawyer had
told all Paris that Hermann Gdring was the real instigator of the
Reichstag fibre, and now he, whom every court throughout the world
would have deemed an interested party, sat here as judge. He was
judge and prosecutor rolled into one. 7

Hays' s comments were different, though no less t

On the thkd day of the hearing, I saw my c^^

France, apparently engaged in deep thought. He scribbled a note and
pushed it to Bergery who sat at my right. I wondered what I had
missed that thi^ eminent French lawyer n^<l caught. I (danced at the
note. It read (translated into English) : There isn't a good-looking
woman in the courtroom.' 8

Nor was the French lawyer the only one to be dissatisfied with
the atmosphere at the Counter-Trial; the original sense of great
excitement soon gave way to a general sense of great boredom.
The reason was simple: the wirepullers, Miinzenberg and Katz,
were able to set the stage, but they could not keep control of it. One
difficulty - and source of boredom for the ever-decreasing number

124

THE POLITICAL CASE

of journalists - was the multi-lingual composition of the bench.
Thus when a French judge' wished to put a question to a German
witness, his question had first to be translated into "English and then
into German, and the German's reply had to be translated back into
French via English. Most of toe interpreters were ordinary
members of the public and there were constant arguments about
the correct translation of a given phrase. In the end, but only after a
great deal of unpleasantness, it was agreed that an English-speaking
German would put English questions to German witnesses and that
a f^rman-gp^a Icing P.n gli <e n m an would translate the German's
reply, on the assumption that an ordinary person can understand a
foreign language better than he can express himself in it. How
closely the courtroom resembled the Tower of Babel can best be
gathered from Hays's wry remark that, on one occasion, his own
American idiom had first to be turned into the King's English
before it could be translated into German.

Oddly enough, the Nazi press reported the Commission's
original deliberation with surprising fairness :

The International Legal Commission into the Burning of the
Reichstag today heard the evidence of Georg Bcmhard. on the
political position at the beginning of the year and bis ^laim that stories
about Communist responsibility [for the fire] were so many fables.
Only if all their leaders ka^ gone absolutely ma^, could *"c Com-
munists have hatched out so idiotic a plot.

Bernhard went on to state that he knew the Communist Torgler
extremely welL In his opinion, it is quite inconceivable that Torgler
did anything so preposterous as setting the Reichstag on fire.

After the noon recess, the Commission heard the Social Democrat
Breitsdbeid. He, too, stated that he had known Torgler for many
years and that he thought it impossible for Torgler to have had any
connection, with the Reichstag fire.

Then there is the story ofhow Albert Norden - editor of the Rote
Fahne and, according to many people, the real author of the
Oberfohren Memorandum - appeared before the Commission
with a masked face, pretending he was a Storm Trooper from
Germany. The mask was ostensibly worn so as to enable the Storm
Trooper to return to Germany, when in feet it served to disguise
Norden's 'pronounced Jewish features'. Even before producing his
mysterious witness, Miinzenberg had prepared the ground so well
that, as Hays tell us,

125

THB REICHSTAG FIRE

. . . one of the [London] papers reported that three of the fifteen
witnesses whom we contemplated calling were on a 'Death List*
posted on the bulletin of a London Nazi dub. Under the names and
photographs of those listed appeared the comment: 'If you meet one
of them, kill him; if he is a Jew, break every bone in his body/

Often the doors to the hearing room would be locked before a
witness was called and remain so until five minutes after the witness
had testified. This in order to enable the witness to get away. . . .
Many of the names of witnesses were kept secret.

But cleverly though Otto Katz played this cloak-and-dagger
game, some ofhis schemes proved too hard to swallow even for the
Commission. An example was the evidence of the witness 'W. S. f
that Bell had shown him a list of thirty well-known homosexuals
whom he had introduced to Rohm, Among these names, the
witness went on to say, he 'particularly remembered' the name of
Marinus van der Subbe or Marinus van der Lubbe and beneath it
the entry : 'Holland'. Herr W.S. made so bad an impression, that the
Commission ba<^ to dismiss him as 'not very reliable 9 . Still, there
were many others no better than Herr W. S. whose monstrous lies
the Commission saw perfectly fit to believe.

By means of the careful sifting of witnesses, the secretariat - that
is, Otto Katz - made sure of one thing at least: the systematic
exclusion of any real friends of van der Lubbe. Thus, when a special
committee consisting of Dr Bakker-Nort, Mr Georg Branting and
Maitre Pierre Vermeylen heard the evidence of sixteen witnesses in
Holland, all of these witnesses 'happened to be' hostile to van der
Lubbe. One of them, the 'poet' Freek van Leeuwen, played a
particularly odious role, for it was largely thanks to M*n that the
London Commission accepted the story of van der Lubbe's
homosexual relationship with Rohm.

On the evening of 19 September, members of the Commission
assembled in a hotel suite. Hays tells us how the stolid and dignified
Pritt sat in the bathroom with a typewriter, while Dr Kurt Rosen-
feld (Torgler's former counsel) and other members of the com-
mittee straightened out exhibits. Others again were wandering
about the rooms. Having finished bis job and finding the bed
covered with papers, the exhausted Hays, 'forgetting the dignity of
the American bar', crept into a corner and fell asleep on the floor.

Next day, the Commission published its 'preliminary' findings,
and it was in the nature of things that these were the mirror-image

126

THE POLITICAL CASE

of the subsequent verdict of the German Supreme Court: where
the former blamed the Nazis, the latter blamed the Communists*
The Final Conclusion of the Committee (formulated by
Bergery) was:

(1) That van der Lubbe is not a membct but an opponent of the
Communist Party; that no connection whatsoever can be traced
between the Communist Party and the burning of the Reichstag; that
the accused Torglcr, Dimitrov, Popov and Tancv ought to be
regarded not merely as innocent of the crime charged, but also as not
having been concerned with or connected in any manner whatsoever,
directly or indirectly, with the arson of the Reichstag.

(2) That the documents, the oral evidence, and the other material in
its [the Commission's] possession tend to establish that van der Lubbe
cannot have committed the crime alone ;

(3) That the examination of all the possible means of ingress and egress

t the i

to or from the Reichstag mak-ps it mghly probable that the incendiaries
made use of the subterranean passage leading from the Reichstag to
die house of the President [Speaker] of the Reichstag ; that the happen-
ing of such a fire at the period in question was of great advantage to the
National Socialist Party ; that for these reasons, and others pointed out

the Reichstag was set on fire by, or on behalf of, leading p ersonalities
of the National Socialist Party.

The Q* vm ' |T> i gjg i r> ' n considers that any Judicial organization C!Xd"cii | * T> g
jurisdiction in the matter should properly investigate these suspicions.

Many lawyers have rightly objected to the German Public
Prosecutor's absurd plea that die Court need not consider *. . . in
which particular way each of the accused carried out the crime.'
The London conclusions are open to precisely the same objection,
for like the German Court verdict later, they were based on so
many unverified political speculations.

As a known member of the London Commission, Hays was
understandably reluctant when he was asked to go to Leipzig as an
observer:

I tried to persuade some of the other lawyers to go with me. Most of
them were too busy to go. Said Bergery: 1 can t go, I am a French
deputy; if anything happened to me in Germany, it would create an

Said I: 'Bergery, that wouldn't bother me. What bothers me is
that if anything happens to me - nobody will pay a damned bit of
attention to it.

127

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Hays started for Germany with trepidation, but he soon dis-
covered that his fears -were groundless. No one took the slightest
notice of him - so much so that he confessed he was a 'little dis-
appointed'.

In general, much to my surprise, the trial was objective. Dr Sack was
defending Torgler conscientiously and with ability. He made it dear
that he had no sympathy for or with the Communist Party or with
Torgler's political views, but that the man, not the party, was on triaL
He left no doubt that he was sure ofhis client's innocence. Any lawyer,
even, though a non-Nazi, would in that atmosphere have taken the
same position.

These remarks, which were published during the war, show not
only that Hays was a man of outstanding honesty, but also why the
Communists grew extremely chary ofhim. Thus he wrote :

My committee, with headquarters in Paris, continually criticized Sack
for not trying to prove that the arson was committed by the Nazis.
Preposterous ! Not only was that not his job, but it would have been
inexcusably stupid.

Hays made it dear that he, the American Jew, was invariably
treated with professional courtesy by Sack, the German Nazi, who
was ready for conference at any time.

The Communists kept in touch with Hays in their own con-
spiratorial manner i

Every few days I was visited by a Communist - usually a different
individual but always giving the name 'Mr Glueck'. I refused to go
to out-of-the-way plaices, so Mr Glueck always ram* to my hoteL

The Paris Communists now thought it was high time to save
poor Arthur G. Hays from the dutches of the Nazi devil, Dr Sack,
and to lead him back to the straight and narrow path of anti-
Fascism. To do so, they behaved with typical mtblessness. After his
return to Germany from a brief visit to Paris, where he had given
an interview to a Pravda correspondent, Hays found that his words
had been twisted out of recognition. Whereas he had told the
reporter no more than

. . . that the Nazis were not on trial, that Sack had based his defence on
the innocence ofhis client rather than on the guilt of others, and that
the only reason the Nazis came into the picture at all was because the

128

THE POLITICAL CASE

court had gone out of its way to disprove the charges in the Brown
Book.... 9

Pravda had reported him as saying:

... I had charged the Court with ignoring evidence pointing to the
guilt of the Nazis, and had charged Sack with betraying his client.

With that 'interview' the Communists nearly attained their
object - Dr Sack was deeply offended with Hays.

It was at about the same time that four foreign lawyers and
observers at the trial, viz. the Bulgarians Grigorev and Dctscheff,
the Frenchman Marcel Villard, and the American Leo Gallagher,
caused an incident which led to their temporary arrest and sub-
sequent expulsion from Germany. Grigorev had tried to approach
Dimitrov at the beginning of a noon recess, but the guards had
pulled Dimitrov away. Enraged, Grigorev and the other foreign
lawyers came to Hays's hotel and insisted that a protest be made
immediately to the Court. Hays objected, stating with good reason
that he had more important things to do trhan to make mountains
out of molehills. A few days later, the Paris Committee sent him
clippings from the French press to the effect that Dimitrov had been
brutally handled in Court, and asked why Hays had ignored the
matter.

Meanwhile, the others had lodged a protest with the Presiding
Judge who referred them to Dr Teichert, Dimitrov's counsel.
When their protest remained unheard, they wrote a letter to Dr
Teichert calling him a Nazi stooge and the whole trial a frame-up.
As a result, Grigorev, Detscheff and Villard were whisked across
the border, while Gallagher, an American citizen and hence not so
easily got rid o was barred from Court, He stayed on in Germany
and continued to bombard the President of the Court with letters of
complaint.

The upshot of all this was that the stage-directors in Paris were
left with no one at the trial except Hays, who kept letting them
down badly:

... I had continually expressed resentment at their continued in-
sistence that I urge Dr Sack to play up the Nazi angle. I had pointed
out that the defence of the innocent was a big enough job and mat this
would be jeopardized by making charges we could not sustain in
Court. . . . The correspondence had become so heated that I had
threatened to leave Berlin if the committee presumed to give me

129

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

instructions. I had begun to feel that the committee might be con-
trolled by leftists* who -were more interested in anti-Nazi propaganda
than in the fate of the defendants whom I was supposed to represent
and that they were trying to use me as a pawn to further thek political
game. 10

When all the factual evidence had been given at the trial, Hays
felt that his job was ended, and he accordingly left Germany on
22 October 1933. Before his departure he wrote to Dr Sack:

After a month of observing the trial I have the fullest confidence in
the objectivity of your defence, and if anyone should criticize you
abroad, you can always rely on my support. 11

But Hays had not yet heard the last of the business. On 13
December 1933 the Public Prosecutor, in the course of a sharp
attack on the Brown Book and the London Counter-Trial, which he
c?llf^ grotesque, charged Hays with hypocrisy, claiming he had
told Soederman, a Swedish criminologist, that though he was con-
vinced the Nazis were not involved, he had not had the courage to
say so openly. This, the Public Prosecutor added, was typical of
the mantiM- in which the London Commission had set to work,
and showed how much attention should be paid to its findings.

Hays immediately sent the following cable:

DR "gA-pT. WERNER, REECHSGERICHT, LEIPZIG, GERMANY. ANSWERING
NEWSPAPER REPORT TOUR SPEECH - I MADE THE SAME STATEMENT TO
SOEDERMAN, TO IONDON COMMISSION, AND PUBLICLY, TO WIT - THERE
IS NO DIRECT EVIDENCE THAT LUBBE HAD ACCOMPLICES BUT IF, AS YOU
CLAIM, HE DID NOT ACT ALONE, THEN HIS ASSOCIATES MUST HAVE BEEN
NAZIS. I HOPE YOU WILL MAKE THIS CORRECTION IN COURT BUT I DONT

EXPECT IT. i*

ARTHUR GARHELD HAYS 12

In other words, Hays was one of the few to realize that van der
Lubbe had fired the Reichstag by himself. Small wonder, there-
fore, that he was not invited to attend the final session of the Inter-
national Legal Commission ( Caxton Hall, 1 8-20 December 193 3),
at the conclusion of which the Chairman, D. N. Pritt, K.C., read
the verdict - three days before the Leipzig judgement. Once again
the date had been chosen skilfully if all the accused were sentenced
there would be an international outcry, and if they were acquitted,
the whole world would know that it was thanks to the efforts of
Munzenberg's Commission.

130

THE POLITICAL CASE

The Verdict* was largely a rehash of the 'final conclusions' of
20 September. In other words, it was based on evidence that most
lawyers would have considered extremely slender, at best, and it
was, once again, the German High Court verdict in reverse:

(i\ Marinus van der Lubbc could not have committed the crime alone.

(2) Grave grounds exist for suspecting that the Reichstag was set on
fire by, or on behalf o National Socialist circles.

(3) The Communist Party had no connection with the burning of
the Reichstag. 18

In addition the Commission found :

That the retrospective application of the penal kw of March 2oth
imposing the death sentence in cases of arson or high treason would
constitute a monstrous violation of one of the principles of justice
most universally recognized among all civilized nations ;

That the conviction of the accused Torglcr, the accusation having
been withdrawn against the three accused Bulgarians, will doubtless
and rightly give rise to universal protest ;

That, bound by its terms oflegalreference, the Legal Commission is
not in a position to give expression to that protest in this report;

BUT that it considers it its duty to proclaim that in these circum-
stances the sentencing to death of Torgler would constitute a judicial
murder. 14

In short, Munzenberg; had made certain, that the German
Supreme Court always tagged one step behind the Brown Book,
which Otto Katz correctly described as thft 'sixth ckfr n ^ aT> t' the
German Court sat for three months, most of which time it spent
on desperate attempts to refute the Brown Book and the findings of
the Counter-Trial.

As Koestler put it :

It was a unique event in criminal history that a Court and a Supreme
Court to boot - should concentrate its efforts on refuting accusations
by a third, extraneous, party. Hence the parade of Cabinet Ministers
on the witness-stand, hence the fantastic request of the court to the
Head of the Potsdam police, to furnish an alibi for his movements at
the frmg when the crime was committed. . . . 16

A German observer summed up the Court's 'fight against the
sixth defendant' as follows: 'Their propaganda . . . was so widely
believed that any failure to discuss their lies, however stupid, would
have been considered an evasion'. 16

Or, to quote Koestler again: 'Both Heines and Schultz had

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

produced fairly convincing alibis, and in some other respects, too,
the guesses of die Brown Book had been wide of the mark. But that
did not flitTiiTiigli the effects. In totalitarian propaganda details do
not matter/

In order to brazen it out with those who had seen through the
Brown Book, Otto Katz produced a further masterpiece called The
Fight for a Book. Here is a specimen of its methods:

The Brown Book has been taken to task for calling Hcincs, Helldorff
and Schultz the real criminals when all three have protested that they
were not. Now, that is the only 'proof of their innocence. The so-
called 'alibis' these men submitted were accepted by the Supreme
Court without question - and that is now called a refutation of the
Brown Bookl

In fact, the three S.A. leaders had alibis that any court would
have accepted. Thus Arthur G. Hays wrote :

Heines, the Silcsian Storm Troop chieftain and Reichstag deputy who,
in the Brown Book and by the Oberfohren Memorandum , was said to
have been the leader of the Nazis who had assisted van der Lubbe and
1v>/1 tVirrt left Viim alone in the burning building, presented an un-
impeachable alibi. Not only he, but his wife, a nurse who attended his
rhiMiwi, and others, testified to his whereabouts on the night of the
fire, in a distant city, Gltiwitz, Silesia,

But facts had never bothered the Brown Book compilers: 'The
Court failed to determine whether Heines had time to fly to and
from his near-by constituency to Berlin.' 17

But Hays closed even this loophole :

More convincing, however, were clippings from local newspapers
showing that Heines had made a speech at a public meeting on
February 27th. Thinking *!" might nave been planted, I fra<1 one of
our Mr 'Gluecks* check up on newspapers of the town. Personally, I
have no doubt that Heines was not involved. The same was true for
Schultz, von Helldorff, and others who had been mentioned as Nazi
accomplices. 18

13*

9- Munzenberg's Striking Success

THE CASE AGAINST GOEBBELS

THOUGH Munzenberg failed to take in Hays, he took in almost
everyone else, partictdarlv when the German Supreme Court
agreed that van der Lubbe must have had accomplices. If the
accused Communists were innocent, what could be more obvious
than to seek the real incendiaries in the National Socialist camp?
Oddly enough, Hitler himself was not implicated, either in the
Broum Book OT Withe Oberfohren Memorandum. Instead, the Com-
munists fastened suspicion on all sorts of leading Nazis, and
especially on Goebbels and Goring.

Dr Goebbels became their favourite target simply because he,
of all the Nazis, was the only one clever enough to have hit on the
idea of Burning the Reichstag as a ny^an$ of seizing power. The
whole thing was started in the Oberfohren Memorandum, where
we read: "The ingenious Goebbels, handicapped by no scruple,
soon devised a plan . . .'

The Brown Book, which elaborated this argument with more
enthusiasm than good sense, claimed: 'It was he [Goebbels] who
first thought of* grand coup which would at one blow change the
political position of the National Socialists/ 1 And elsewhere, in
unmistakable Communist Party jargon: 'Goebbels provided the
plans for the most outrageous provocation which a ruling class has
ever used against the insurgent working class.'*

"^** 1 J "' y

Goebbels himself scoffed at these accusations, when he gave his
evidence before the Supreme Court:

It came as a great surprise to me when I read that the Brown Book
considers me me author of this plan. That is just one more proof of the
complete lack of imagination with which the Communists trump up
their charges. Can anyone really believe that I have no better way of

ft C ^^tr\mtinists frni>TT flfcji*t*ino^ tire *^

* w ^ rfw ** B ^ , ****,*

Now, Goebbels would, in fact, have had to be a political idiot,
and not the shrewd schemer he was, had he really hit upon so

133

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

dangerous a plot. Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that a fire
would have been needed by the Nazis in order to squash the Com-
munist Party or 'the insurgent working class'. Let us further assume
that the best plan would have been to set the Reichstag on fire*
Then this is how Goebbels might have planned it :

A posse of Storm Troopers is returning from a victorious street
battle. Singing a rousing song with throats hoarse from cheering
for Germany, they are just rounding the Reichstag, full of the joys
of life, when they are alerted by passers-by. The Reichstag is on
fire ! With their usual sang-froid the Storm Troopers rush into the
burning building and catch the incendiaries red-handed. They are
ten well-known Communists, carrying detailed instructions for a
putsch and Communist Party membership cards in their pockets,
and all are killed on the spot by the enraged Storm Troopers. Later,
the press is allowed to inspect the gutted building, and the well-
known faces of the Communist criminals. There is no lengthy trial,
there are no foreign suspicions -just perfect co-ordination. And
yet even this plan would have been studded with difficulties. First
of all it would have involved a fairly large number of accomplices
and hence a grave risk of betrayal. Secondly, most Reichstag
officials, porters, etc., would have had to be replaced beforehand
with reliable Storm Troopers.

But in any case Goebbels would have made certain that his men
discovered real Communists - albeit dead - rather than Marinus
van der Lubbe, who insisted he had left the Communist Party and
had burned the Reichstag all by himself.

Torgler's counsel, Dr Sack, dealt with this question at some
length:

It is quite ridiculous to suggest that the National Socialists should have
picked a tramp as the best person to carry out a plan whose discovery
would threaten the whole nation. . . .

Only a fool would have allowed the intended arsonist to wander
about alone, in rags and tatters, begging for food in the streets, and
sleeping in the public shelters in Glindow, Berlin and Henningsdoi

Only a fool would have instructed van der Lubbe to scale up the
wall of the Reichstag, to break windows, and thus to expose the -whole
plan to so many risks of discovery. After all, the shot fired by Sgt
Buwert might easily have hit van der Lubbe and might thus have
thwarted the 'whole plan'. This plan, allegedly invented by Goebbels,
the undisputed master of the art of propaganda, would therefore have

134

THB POLITICAL CASE

been so full of flaws as to invite discovery deliberately. This suggestion
alone shows that the Oberfbhren Memorandum is a tissue of malicious
lies. The Memorandum, which claims to know precisely what
happened, is bound to be wrong, simply because its authors were, in
fact, quite unaware of the real course of events. They did not know
where van der Lubbe had spent the previous day, that he had climbed
into the Reichstag instead of entering through the subterranean
passage, or that a revolver was fired at him. They did not know all this
because the records of the preliminary investigation had mercifully
not been made public. 4

All Dr Goebbels did do - and who would \
brilliantly? - was to exploit the results of the fibre', the more so
because he himself was fully convinced that the Communists were
responsible.

Though neither Goebbels, Goring nor any other National
Socialist had thought up the idea of burning the Reichstag as a
pretext for starting an anti-Communist pogrom, Munzenberg's
propaganda -was so effective that the Nazi leaders themselves began
to suspect one another. Thus one of Gocbbels's collaborators,
Werner Stephan, wrote after the war, when the burning of the
Reichstag appeared a minor transgression in comparison with all
the JTiVmmfl'n. rrimffg tfi^ Nazis had committed, that Goebbels
'probably conceived the idea', and '. . . in any case, the burning of
Parliament provided the main theme of his election campaign'. 5

Dr Wolfi s conclusion in his report on the fire was that

Goebbels must be considered the evil genius behind and, thanks to his
tremendous intelligence, the real perpetrator o this clevilish plan-

Also there is Sommrrfeldt's highly informative Ich war dabei
('I was there') which threw a great deal oflight on the circumstances

moted* Sommerfeldt

to the rank of Oberregierungsrat, and like many of Goring's
minions, Sommerfeldt felt acutely suspicious of Goebbels, Goring* s
chief rival in the Nazi hierarchy. In his book, Dr Wolff published
a letter from Sommerfeldt, from which we quote the following

gignffira-nt passagci

From the night of the fire to this day, I have been convinced that the
Reichstag was set on fire neither cry the Communists nor at the
instigation, let alone the participation, of Hermann Gdring, but that
the fire was the p&ce de resistance of Dr Goebbels's election campaign,

135

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

and that it was started by a handful of Storm Troopers all of whom
were shot afterwards by an S. S. commando in the vicinity of Berlin.
There was talk often men, and of the Gestapo investigating the crime.
This was reported to me on the one hand by the chief of the Berlin
Storm-Detachment, Gruppenfuhrer Ernst, who was filled with
poisonous hatred of Goebbels, and also by Dr Diels who, at the time
it was the spring of 1934. - gave me exact details about the scene and of
the crime and the identification of the ten victims. 6

If Sommerfeldt did, in fact, claim that he knew all this in the
spring of 1934, it seems most odd that he failed to disclose it in his
Ich war dabei which was published in 1949. Moreover, if Sommer-
feldt claims that he heard details of the crime and the victims from
Diels, why did he not think fit to mention any of their names, thus
helping to turn mere suspicion into certainty? But once again, it
is more than accident that no names were mentioned, and it is not
surprising that Dids's Lucifer anteportas contains no single reference
to what would certainly have been a most important aspect of the
Reichstag fire story - had the murder of the ten Storm Troopers
ever happened, that is.

All Sommerfeldt wrote in 1949 was:

If -we look back today across the ruins of Germany at the ruins of the
Reichstag, we realize that that act of arson was no more than an act of
malice and a 'masterpiece of agitation 9 of the kind for which Dr
Goebbels was so well known. Today I am convinced of what I could
only suspect at the time: that Goebbels administered this act of
incendiarism as a shot in the arm of the floating or lazy voters. . . .

"With hi alleged signal for a Communist uprising, Goebbels flung
Hitler and G5ring into a whirlpool of profound and irrevocable
decisions. And this master-psychologist showed that he knew what he
was doing. 7

It was in 193 3 that Sommerfeldt first discussed his suspicions with
his friend, Storm Troop Leader Prince August Wilhelm, who told
him that the S.A. was in a state of great agitation because '. . . a
number of Storm Troopers had been arrested and had since dis-
appeared. S .A. Leader Ernst was prepared to swear any oath that
Dr Goebbels was behind it all, and asked that Goebbels be paid out
for his treachery.'

Sommerfeldt immediately asked whether there was any con-
nection between these arrests and the Reichstag fire which, foreign
rumour had it, was started by Ernst's gang. To Sommerfeldt's great

136

THE POLITICAL CASE

disappointment, the Prince who, as a dose confidant ofRohm and
Ernst, ought to have known the truth '. . . denied categorically that
he had heard anything on the subject except wild rumours'. 8
Sommerfeldt also discussed his suspicions with Rohm :

I dropped a gentle hint that the Reichstag fire trial had led to personal
differences between Gdring and mysel and Rohm asked in surprise:
'What on earth did GSring have to do with the whole business?'
When I replied: 'Who else?* he said furiously:
'Well, who but that devil, Jupp [Joseph Goebbels]?'
I must have evinced too much curiosity, for he quickly changed the
subject . . .

Now, all that this proves is that the Nazi leaders thought one
another capable of any piece of villainy - quite rightly so, as all of
us have had to learn to our cost.

Unfortunately, Sommerfeldt was not able to draw the only
reasonable conclusion from these mutual recriminations, even
though that conclusion stared him in the face:

I had written a pamphlet on GSring and I had conducted the German
and foreign press to the scene of the crime - for that was my job. This
very fact was enough to stamp me an incendiary as well It is under-
standable, therefore, why this stupid charge suggested to me that the
accusations against the others might be just as false. 10

And yet Sommerfeldt went on to blame Goebbels without
producing a shred of real evidence against him. To this day, no
such evidence has been brought forward by anyone, despite the
fact that so gigantic a plot as the one Goebbels is alleged to have
hatched out, must have involved a large number of accomplices,
and despite the fact that accomplices invariably talk. In 1933, &
Nazis were not nearly as well entrenched as they were, for instance,
in 1939 when they attacked the Gleiwitz radio-station, pretending
they were Poles. Yet, despite all their efforts to wipe out the
evidence on that occasion, the real facts could be established
without much difficulty, and far beyond mere rumour and
speculation,

THE CASE AGAINST GORING

While not a single one of the many survivors from Goring's
immediate circle considered it even vaguely possible that Goring
could have had anything to do with the Reichstag fire, there are

137

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

two men who claim to have heard Goring himself confess his
guilt. These men are Hermann Rauschning and Franz Haider.

In 1940, Hermann Rauschning published a hook in the United
States which quickly became a best-seller and was translated into
most European languages. The book was called Voice of Destruction.

Rausduung, who was elected President of the Danzig Senate in
July 1933, left the Nazi bandwagon in the autumn of 1934- He
stayed in Danzig for another two years, and then went abroad with
his story of Hitler's intimate thoughts.

In his book Rauschning tells how, shortly after the Reichstag
fire, Hitler asked him for a report on the Danzig situation, and
how, while waiting in the lobby of the Chancellery, he got into
conversation with some Nazi celebrities, including Goring,
Himmler, Frick, and 'a number of Gauleiter from, the western
provinces' :

Qdring was giving details of the Reichstag fire, the secret of which was
still being closely guarded. I myself had unhesitatingly ascribed it to
arson on the part of persons under Communist, or at any rate
Comintern, influence. It was not until I heard this conversation that I
discovered that the National Socialist leadership was solely re-
sponsible.

The complacency with which this dose circle of the initiated dis-
cussed the deed was shattering. . . . There is nothing more extra-
ordinary than that this enormous crime, the perpetrators of which
gradually became known in the widest circles, should not have been
sharply condemned, even in middle-class quarters. Many people
actually condoned this coup. Still more extraordinary is the fact that
the incendiary himself has actually enjoyed a certain amount of
sympathy in foreign countries, even till quite recently.

The incendiary Rauschning referred to was, not van der Lubbe,
but Hermann Goring.

Gratified laughter, cynical jokes, boasting - these were the sentiments
expressed by the 'conspirators'. GSring described how 'the boys' had
entered the Reichstag building by a subterranean passage from the
President's Palace, and how they had only a few minutes at their dis-
posal and were nearly discovered. He regretted that the 'whole shack'
had not burnt down. They had been so hurried that they could not
'make a proper job of it*.

The many inverted commas round Goring's alleged phrases
138

THE POLITICAL CASE

suggest that Rauschning jotted them down under the immediate
influence of what he had heard* - as he himself put it in the preface
to his book. Hence it seems doubly surprising that, when asked to
fill in some of the missing details, Rauschning was quite unable to
do so. For instance, Rauschning was unable to identify the 'Gauleiter
from the western provinces', though he continued to insist that
*. . . after every such conversation he had made careful notes and
that there was no doubt whatever about the general accuracy -
though not necessarily the precise wording - of his reports/

Rauschning added that the Reichstag fire discussion was domi-
nated by Goring, who spoke Very loudly and quite unashamedly'.
However when he (Rauschning) approached the group, Gauleiter
Forster (who had accompanied Rauschning from Danzig) gave a
signal and the conversation stopped.

A few years later still, Rauschning described his experiences as
follows:

Gdring did not describe these details to me or to Forster, but to a circle
of confidants and friends in different sorts of uniforms, who sur-
rounded him before we arrived. Forster and I heard no more than
snatches of the conversation. When one of the group spotted me, the
outsider, he gave G3ring a sign and Gftring stopped talking.

This version differs markedly from the one in Rauschning's
book, in which Rauschning specifically stated that he 'got into
conversation with the Nazi celebrities'. Also in the last versionit was
not Forster but one of the people round Goring who had signalled
Goring to stop. Moreover, according to the book, Goring did not
stop abruptly at all, but closed with the signj-firant words : 'I have
no conscience. My conscience is Adolf Hitler.'

True, Rauschning, when asked about these and other contra-
dictions, insisted that his version of the conversation was the correct
one, but it seems rather difficult to decide which of his versions he
really meant. For in the end Rauschning himself had to admit
that

. . . detailed and careful investigations have shown certain con-
tradictions in my evidence. . . . Indeed, I admit gladly that, as a result, I
have grown less certain, not about my evidence, but in my previous
attitude to the fire. ... I declare with all emphasis that there had been
no misunderstanding and that I vouch for the literal truth of GSring's

ringing words. 11

139

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

And Rauschning went on to say:

Whether Goring himself was speaking the whole truth, or indeed the
truth, is quite a different matter. I myself have never fully believed
Gftring's version . . .

A far cry from the allegations made in his book !

Goring himself had, of course, read Rauschning' s book, so that
when he was asked by Mr Justice Robert H. Jackson, Chief
Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trial, whether he himself had not
admitted to setting the Reichstag on fire, he knew at once what it
was all about, and protested angrily:

No. I know that Herr Rauschning said in the book which he wrote
. . . that I discussed this with him. I saw Herr Rauschning only twice
in my life and only for a short time on each occasion. Had I set fire to
the Reichstag I would presumably have let that be known only to my
closest circle of confidants, if at alL I would not have told it to a man
whom I did not know and whose appearance I could not describe at
all today. That is an absolute distortion of the truth. 18

Now, Goring may have been too hard on Rausdming, for there
is yet another possible explanation of the whole business: Rausch-
ning might well have overheard, not a boastful outburst of
Goring's, but one of Goring's frequent displays of his particular
brand of twisted humour. For this is precisely what happened to
the second 'star witness' against Goring, Franz Haider, the Chief
of the General Staff:

Jackson: *Do you remember a luncheon in 1942, on Hitler's birthday,
in the officers' mess, at the Fuhrer's Headquarters in East Prussia?'

GSring: 'No/

Jackson: 'You do not remember that? I will ask that you be shown
the affidavit of General Franz Haider, and I call your attention to his
statements which may refresh your recollection:

' "On the occasion of a luncheon on the Fuhrer's birthday in 1943,
the people round the Fflhrer turned the conversation to the Reichstag
building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears how GSring
broke into the conversation and shouted: "The only one who really
knows the Reichstag is I, for I set fire to it. 9 And saying this, he slapped
nig thigh." '

Gftring: "This conversation did not take place, and I request that I
be confronted with Herr Haider. First of all, I want to emphasize that
what is written here is utter nonsense. It says: "The only one who
really knows the Reichstag is L" The Reichstag was known to every

140

THE POLITICAL CASE

representative in the Reichstag. The fire took place in the general
assembly room, and many hundreds of thousands of people knew this
room as well as I did. A statement of this type is utter nonsense. How
Herr Haider came to make that statement, I do not know. Apparently
that bad memory, which let him down in military matters, is the only
explanation. 9

Goring had previously been examined on Haider's testimony by
Dr Robot Kempner, Assistant Trial Counsel for the American
Prosecution:

Kempner : 'A number of generals have alleged that you have boasted
of your connection with tne Reichstag fire.

Gdring : 'what the general says is not true. I should very much like
to see him here, so that he can say it to my face. The whole thing is
preposterous. Even had I started the fire, I would most certainly not
have boasted about it. ... These generals all talk utter nonsense. I
object most strongly that people keep saying I did it. All I did was say,
by way of a joke, that people will soon stop believing that Nero
burned Rome, because tne next thing they will say is that it was I
who was fiddling in his toga.'

Now, even if Goring did make the remark Haider alleges he
heard, die feet that he slapped his thigh suggests strongly mat be
must have been joking. Haider would certainly have missed the
joke, for his lack of humour was proverbial.

The case against Goring also rested on the allegation by Diels
and Gritzbach (Goring's Secretary of State) that their chief had
told them about the Reichstag fire long before it started.

Kempner: Diels sap that you knew exactly that tne fire was to be
started in some manner, and that he had prepared the arrest lists
already previously, the lists of people that were to be arrested im-
mediately the night after the fire.'

G6ring: 'When did he say that?'

Kempner: 'He told that for the first time two days after the fire
and he later repeated it.'

G5ring: 'To whom did he say that two days after the fire?

Kempner: To certain officials of the Ministry of the Interior'.

Gdring: 'It is true that lists for the arrests of Communists quite

141

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

independent of the Reichstag fire had already been prepared. The fire
did not start for that. They would have been arrested anyway. IfDiels
said that I knew about the fire, then for some reason ne must have
spoken nonsense, and I can't explain it in any way, and it would be
very interesting to me to be confronted with Diels so that he can tell
it to my face/

And elsewhere:

Gdring: 'I cannot judge what people are saying now, but I should
like to be confronted with Gritzbach so that he can tell it to my face
that I knew about it. ... I knew nothing about it and even they [Diels
and Gritzbach] could have known nothing about it. Gritzbach, at
the time, did not even belong to my personal staff. I never had such
thoughts, and I must stress again that it would have been idiotic to
deprive ourselves of the House, which was very important for us,
and that afterwards I had great difficulties in "finding a substitute for
the Reichstag building. 9

Kempner: 'You had nothing to do with it, and yet there were
rumours that it was the Storm Troopers.'

G5ring: 'No, I had nothing to do with it. I deny this absolutely,
and am prepared to face anyone with whom you care to confront me.
I can tell you in all honesty, that the Reichstag fire proved very
inconvenient to us/

Kempner: 'To whom?'

Gdring: 'To the Fuhrer and also to me as the President of the
Reichstag. Had we given such a signal, we should have picked less
essential buildings.'

Kempner: 'What buildings, for instance, would have been a better
signal tnan the Reichstag? The Berlin Palace?*

Gdring: 'Yes, the Palace or any other buildings. After the fire I
had to use the Kroll Opera House as the new Reichstag. You must
know that I took a keen interest in my state theatres, and that I found
it bothersome, for the Kroll Opera was our opera number two, and
the opera seemed to me much more important than the Reichstag/

The International Military Tribunal apparently believed
Goring rather than his accusers, for Diels's and Gritzbach' s evi-
dence was not pursued any further.

OR WAS IT KARL ERNST?

Before 30 Time 1934 neither the Brown Book nor any other Com-
munist publication contained even the slightest hint that Karl
Ernst had played any active part during the fire. But when Hidcr

142

THE POLITICAL CASE

suddenly obliged, them with three corpses: Gruppenfuhrer Karl
Ernst, and his associates Mohrenschild and Sander, die oppor-
tunity seemed far too good to be missed.

Immediately after the executions, in the summer of 1934,
Miinzenberg's Editions du Carrefour published a White Book on
the Shootings of June $oth 1934 (see Appendix D), containing a
forged letter, ostensibly sent by Karl Ernst to Edmund Heines on
5 June 1934- The letter was written in what was assumed to be
S.A. barrack-room style, and accompanied a signed confession to
the effect that Ernst was 'Incendiary No. i*.

Wisely the authors of the White Book refrained from tilling
their readers how they of all people had managed to get hold of
this top secret Nazi document. Despite this omission, and despite
the crude way in which they forged the letter, die Communists
were, once again, able to take in a host of unsuspecting people.

Unfortunately for the forgers, two of die accomplices named by
Ernst S. A. Oberfuhrer Richard fiedler and Dr Ernst Hanfstaengl
- survived 30 June 1934 and both men called the confession a com-
plete fabrication.

Moreover, one of Miinzenberg's former colleagues, Erich
Wollenberg, published an article in Schulze-Wilde's Echo der
Woche in which, he stated that the Paris Communists forged docu-
ments so successfully that they managed to fool even the former
Gestapo agent Gisevius. Among these documents was

. . . the so-called Ernst testament, which was concocted by a group of
German Communists in Paris in ringing Bruno Prei and Konny
Nordcn- after Ernst's murder on June soth, 1934, and only published
after Dimitrov himself had edited it in Moscow. . . - 18

Goring, who was in any case extremely sensitive about his
alleged part in the Reichstag fire, was absolutely incensed when he
heard that this forged document coupled his name with that of
Karl Ernst. "When Dr Robert Kempner asked hi whether Ernst
might have had a hand in die fire, he received die following
reply:

GOring: 'Yes, he is the mafl who could have done it. But I think die
letter I was recendy shown is absolute nonsense. . . .'

Kempner: 'One of your friends told me diat Ernst's part was dis-
cussed in your circle and that other people were also present. Will
you tell us what was said on that occasion? There was talk in your

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

house that Ernst and the S.A. were involved. Will you tell us about
that conversation?'

G6ring: "The matter was mentioned very briefly. There was no
proof at alL Marinus van der Lubbe had admitted that he had taken
these things into the Reichstag, and therefore nothing more was said
about it.'

Kempner: 'Why did you mention Ernst's name and the S.A. in
connection with the fire?'

G5ring : 'Ernst pkyed a part in it, but I don't remember who told
me. From the start, I thought that Ernst was a man -who would love to
give us trouble, for he was responsible for savaging people in con-
centration camps. He was also a real live-wire and at one stage very
important to Hitler.'

Kempner: 'We have some evidence to show that Goebbels and
Ernst got on very -well together at the rime, that Goebbels knew some-
thing about the Reichstag fire, and that he talked about it/

G6ring : 'I do not believe that. Ernst was the leader of the S.A. and
Goebbels did not get on with him. Goebbels was always suspicious
of the Berlin S. A., because they staged a putsch in 1930, as a result of
which our situation became very, very difficult.*

Kempner: 'Is Diels right to claim that you gave express orders to
dig up evidence against the Communists but not to follow any trail
leading to the S.A. or to Ernst?'

Gdring : "That is untrue. Ernst was not mentioned at all at the time.'

Kempner: 'How do you explain the fact that the whole world says
you did it?*

Gdring: *Yes, that was said quite suddenly. They "just knew" it.
The entire foreign press claimed two days afterwards that I had burned
the Reichstag.'

Kempner: 'Why didn't they say it was Ernst and his men?'

Gdring : They -were not so well known abroad. I was the President
of the Reichstag, and so it seemed more fitting to involve me.'

Kempner: Who were Ernst's friends or who do you think
belonged to his circle at the time?'

Gdring : 'I don't know who was dose to Ernst. I don't know these
people. I liked neither Ernst nor Vis tendencies.'

Kempner: 'Are you referring to his homosexual tendencies?'

Gdring: *Yes, but for political reasons/

Kempner: 'But as a politician and as Prussian Prime Minister did
you not know that those -who constantly caused you trouble were
Ernst's people?*

Gdring: That's true of Ernst himself. But the names of his people -
well, there were quite a few S.A. leaders outside Berlin,

144

THE POLITICAL CASE

Heydebrcck in Pomcrania, who were also -malHng trouble. Ernst
provided me with a comical S.A. guard, which was supposed to
arrest me one day and of which I got rid with some excuse or other.
I simply disbanded them.*

Kempner: 'What was said about Ernst's role? If his men burned
the Reichstag, what motive could they have had? In criminal cases
we have to ask: Cut bone? 9

Goring: 'It was only discussed once, not immediately after the
fire, but later. When all those allegations against me were being made,
we wondered whether the S.A. had had anything to do with it,
simply because that came out during the investigation.'

Kempner : 'In other words, you yourself had nothing to do with it,
and it was merely rumoured that the S.A. was involved?'

Gdring: 'No, I had nothing to do with it, I say so categorically and
I look forward to any confrontation whatsoever.'

Kempner: "There are these alternatives: either van der Lubbe did
it, or else the S.A. did it for political reasons.'

Gdring: 'In either case van der Lubbe was involved, for he, after
all, was caught,'

Kempner: 'But van der Lubbe was half crazy, is that not true? Do
you agree?*

GSring: 'Yes/

Kempner: 'Is it therefore not possible that van der Lubbe was used
by the S.A.?*

Gdring: 'Yes, well, I have read the letter [he was referring to
Ernst's letter]. As far as I know, van der Lubbe could not speak a word
of German.'

Kempner : 'Yes, but there were interpreters 'who could have spoken

to Viirn.

G6ring : 'How could they have met van der Lubbe? But anything
is possible.'

Kempner: 'Anything is possible, indeed. Do you think that
Goebbds and the S.A. might nave been jointly involved?'

Gdring: 'I really cannot imagine it.'

Kempner: *You cannot imagine it?*

GSring: 'No, I really cannot.*

Now Kempner urged Goring once again to recall who could
possibly have been interested in starting the fire. Goring took the
opportunity to put forward certain conjectures, but no more:

Gdring : *I must repeat that no pretext was needed for taking measures
against the Communists. I already had a number of perfectly good
reasons in the form of murders, etc. The fire served- or was supposed

145

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

to serve - or could . . . well . . . I'm really wondering what motive
Ernst might have had. Perhaps he argued: "We'll start the fire and
then give it out that it was the Communists." Perhaps the S.A.
thought in that way they might gain a larger slice of our power/
Kempner: "Well, now we re getting somewhere.'

Goring's reasons for harbouring vague suspicions against Ernst
were obvious. After the Reichstag Fire Trial he, too, must have
begun to wonder whether van der Lubbe's accomplices could have
been Communists. Moreover, the S.A. outrages, and his growing
dislike of Ernst and Ernst's gang must have made even Goring
receptive to foreign and local rumours.

However, Goring himself gave his word to Count Schwerin
von Krosigk and also to Presidential Secretary Otto Meissner, -who
was interned with him and who asked him about his share in the
Reichstag fire, that he (Goring) was completely innocent. All he
did was grant the possibility that *. . . some "wild" National
Socialist commando, and possibly even the Berlin S.A. leaders
Count Helldorffand Karl Ernst, mighthave been responsible for the
Reichstag fire, and might have used van der Lubbe as their tool'. 14

And why, after all, should Goring have thought Karl Ernst, the
man who, in his opinion, had prepared a putsch against Hitler in
1934, incapable of setting fire to the Reichstag? Or for that matter
Count Hdldorff, who had participated in the anti-Hitler revolt of
20 July 1944?

But that is all Goring did - admit that these men might have
started the fire. Yet unlike most of his detractors, he left it at that,
and refrained from whitewashing himself by malring direct
accusations against others.

Finally, let us listen to a witness whose evidence is more than
speculation or surmise: the former S.A. Obersturmfuhrer and
subsequent Detective-Inspector, Dr Alfred Martin. This is what
he had to say:

At the time of the Reichstag fire, I was an S. A. Obersturmffihreronthe
personal staff of Gruppenfuhrer Helldorffand Ernst, which m*A* me
a sort of general factotum. The reason for my promotion was simply
that my doubts had caused me to keep clear or politics and also that
as one of the few trained men among a whole lot of rowdies I was
more presentable than such types as Schweinebacke. In my S.A.
work I enjoyed the complete confidence of Ernst and of his

146

THE POLITICAL CASE

lieutenants, and I am quite certain that I should have known, hadErnst,
Schwcinebacke, etc. - all those names were later mentioned by anti-
Fascist circles as having been involved in the Reichstag fire - really
had anything to do with it. In particular, I had highly confidential
conversations with them and also with Walter von Mohrensdhild,
a debonair young man of very good family and Ernst's second in
command. At the time I had already joined the Resistance and when-
ever these men were in their cups I made a point of returning to the
subject of the fire. Moreover, von Mohrenschild and I were both
dragged by S.A. gendarmes before the summary court of that fine
gentleman Herr Fritsch and sentenced to death [June soth, 1934].
Until Mohrenschild's execution, we shared a cellar of the Lichterfelde
Kaserne, and had many long and serious conversations, during -which
I referred to the part he was alleged to have played in the Reichstag
fire. All these men steadfastly denied S.A. or Party responsibility for
the fire. I, personally, have gained the conviction that the Party and
the S.A. had absolutely nothing to do with it. Moreover, during my
training with the criminal police in Berlin in autumn 1933, I had
occasion to glance at the files and I also had long; conversations with
the man in charge of the investigations and above all of van dcr
Lubbe's interrogation. . . . This man [Dr Zirpinsl, -whom I knew
very well, was anything but a Nazi. He told me tiiat there was no
doubt that van der X/ubbe had burnt the Reichstag by himselfl

The reliability of this witness is vouchedfor by Diels, who wrote:

This organization [Division Ic of the S.A.I also contained a number
of decent young men, some of them students, who had joined the
S.A. merely in order to fight Communism. But when all sorts of
sordid desperadoes from the gutters of Berlin started flocking into Ic,
the better elements left in horror. Among them was the group round
young Dr Martin, who made contact with the 'anti-militarist
machine', thus probably saving the lives of many intended Storm
Troop victims. 15

THE MASS ARRESTS

One weighty reason for blaming the Reichstag fire on the
National Socialists was that they had ostensibly prepared a huge
number of -warrants, with only the date missing, against the right
of the fire, when they hauled thousands of Communists out of bed
and dragged them off to police-stations and S.A. barracks.

Now, mere is no denying the arrests themselves, but they do not
necessarily imply Nazi complicity in the Reichstag fire.

147

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

First of all, the large-scale arrests and raids involved the full co-
operation of the Political Branch (Division IA) of the Prussian
police and ready access to their documents. Hence the whole plan
hinged on the silence of men, many of whom, as we saw, were
still so filled with 'old-fashioned* notions that Goring was forced
to create the more reliable Nazi 'auxiliary* police on 22 February
1933. These men kept silent, simply because there was nothing to
reveaL This fact alone exonerates die Nazis even if we choose to
ignore the statements by Diels, Dr Schneider, and other high-
ranking officers of Division IA, that the Reichstag fire took them

During his evidence to the Supreme Court on 4 November,
Goring himself had this to say:

Many people have wondered how it came about that pay orders to
arrest the ringleaders were carried out so promptly. Far from proving
my prior knowledge of the fire, this merely shows how efficient our
measures were. . . . Now, for the reason why: on the night of the fire,
I knew all about the whereabouts of leading Communists because my
predecessor had already prepared a full list of their addresses and hide-
outs. On coming into office, I immediately checked and completed
that list, and that is wh I -was able to arrest thousands of Communist
officials iTn m c

Gdring's explanation was fully corroborated by Diels : 17 a list of
the names and addresses ofleading Communists had been prepared
under Police President Severing, together, of course, with a similar
list of Nazis and rightist extremists - a fact which Diels did not
mention. In other words, the mass arrest of Communist officials
could have been ordered any time the Minister saw fit to do
so.

When Goring was asked about the matter in 1933 and again in
1945, he kept insisting :

I very much, regret and I confess it openly before all the world -
that the Reichstag fire saved certain Communist leaders from the
gallows, when it had always been my intention to smash them com-
pletely the moment they gave the slightest hint of rebellion. . . .

There were many other 'regrettable* mistakes during Goring's
action, itirlnrltng one which caused great amusement in Court, viz.
the abortive attempt to arrest Ernst Torgler. This is how Torgler
t-Vi^

himself remembers t-Vi^ occasion

148

THE POLITICAL CASE

Because I expected them to come for me next morning, if not that
night, I decided to spend the night [of the fire] with our parliamentary
secretary, Otto Kuehne, at his house in Bedin-Pankow. While he
himself was arrested there next morning, I -was left severely alone.
This fact caused some amusement in the court-room, because of the
light it cast on the 'shrewdness* and 'intelligence* of the police officers.
When a policeman opened the door to the room in which I had slept,
I was just dressing and bade him good morning politely. He returned
the greeting with equal politeness, and closed the door. 18

Really though, there was no reason to laugh at dapper detective
Franz Hohmann, for like so many of his colleagues, he had been
summoned to police headquarters in the early hours of the morn-
ing, and ordered to bring in a whole lot of men. Naturally he
realized that all of them were Communists, but he never even
thought of arresting anyone for whom he had no warrant. After
all, he was a policeman and not a politician.

Thus Hohmarm is our best witness for the fact that 'outmoded'
police methods were still being used at that time and, beyond that,
that the black list had been compiled by Goring's predecessors.
For Torgler' s host for the night, Otto Kuehne, had moved house
a year before, yet Hohmann had been sent to look for him at his
old address, where he wasted hours trying to dig him up. In fact,
Hohmann did not arrive at the correct address until seven o'clock
in the morning.

But while the police were going about their business, the Storm
Troopers were m airing another, quite independent, series of mass
arrests which has often been confused with the police action. This
wave of arrests was completely improvised, as many former Nazis
have since testified. Dr Taube, for instance, an 'anti-Communist
propaganda expert, spent the evening of the fire in the Berlin Nazi
headquarters, from which the Reichstag blaze could be seen. Since
no one thought the fire had any political implications, Dr Taube
eventually went home to bed. An hour later, he was ordered back
to headquarters, where he found everyone in a state of great
agitation. He was told that the police had caught a Dutch Com-
munist, that a Communist putsch might start at any moment. A
senior S.S. officer - the S.S. was a branch of the S.A. until 30 June
1934 - was poring over a list of 'suspicious political elements' com-
piled by Naaiblodcwardens and by Heydrich's intelligence

149

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

service. The S.S. officer then ticked off all 'dangerous' names, on
the principle that members of the intelligentsia were particularly
noxious. That is how it came about that such non-Communists
as Ludwig Renn, Erich Muhsam, Carl von Ossietzky, Otto
Lchmann-Russbiildt and many like them were hauled out of their
beds in the middle of the night.

The Nazi lists, like those of the police, were out of date, and
included names of people who had died some rime earlier. More-
over, former Nazis have admitted that individual S. A. leaders and
rner made hay while the sun shone, and started guttling personal
scores with people who were not on the list. On 20 Octooer 1933
the Supreme Court asked Count Wolf von Helldorff, Police Chief
of Potsdam and Berlin S.A. Chief, to describe his movements on
the night of the fire. He testified:

On the day of the Reichstag fire, I worked in my office until about
7 p.m. Then I joined Professor von Arnim, the then Chief of Staff
of the Berlin S. A., for dinner at Klinger's in the Rankestrasse. When
we were at table, someone rang us up and told us about the Reichstag
fire. I asked Herr von Arnim to get to the Reichstag as quickly as
possible, and to ring me at home in case I was needed. At about
10 p.m. I was told that my presence in the Reichstag was not required.
At about ii p.m. I drove to my offices in Hedcmannstrasse where I
had a conference with my staff. The subject of the Reichstag fire was
broached. Next day, I gave orders for the arrest of a large number of
Communist and Social Democratic officials. 19

(This statement was corroborated by Professor von Amim and
the owner of the restaurant.)

After his testimony, Helldorff was greatly embarrassed by
Torgler, who asked him : 'Did you give the orders for the arrest of
the Communist and Social Democratic leaders in your official
capacity [as Chief of the Potsdam police] or in your capacity as
S.A. leader?'

Helldorff started hedging; he was not quite sure what Torgler
was getting at. The Public Prosecutor immediately rushed to his
assistance, objecting that Torgler' s question was irrelevant and
immaterial inasmuch as it had no bearing on HelldorfFs move-
ments. However, the Presiding Judge overruled the objection, and
Helldorff was compelled to answer. He preferred to sacrifice the
truth and incriminate himself rather than throw the blame on
Goring, the Minister of the Interior:

150

THE POLITICAL CASE

I gave the orders entirely on my own responsibility. As Gruppen-
funrer of the Berlin S.A., I felt fully entitled to arrest enemies of the
state, particularly since the Reichstag had been set on fire and since
we alTknew who the culprits were.

Fourteen days later Hermann Goring tried to correct HeU-
dorfFs damaging admission, and told the Court:

We threw in the entire police force. Because that was not enough, I
naturally deployed the S.A. and die S.S. as well That is why I
summoned Count Helldorff. I know he has told the Court that he
acted entirely on his own initiative, but I must add the small proviso
that, though I left him a free hand in details, I gave him die clear order
to use his Storm Troops and arrest every Communist vagabond he
could lay his hands on. That was a measure which I supported one
hundred per cent. Without the praiseworthy help of our S.A. and
S.S., the colossal success of that night, during which 5,000 Communist
leaders were taken behind lock and bar, would not have been possible.

Clearly, either Goring or Helldorffhad committed perjury. The
truth came out much later, when Goring was forced to admit,
under Dimitrov's piercing questions, that Helldorffhad ordered
his S.A. henchmen out into the street before he (Goring) had a
chance to sanction the order, thus giving it a semblance of legality .

Unable to grasp that the only reason why the Communists made
no effort to hit back was that they had made no plans to do so,
Goring and Helldorff both boasted to the Court that it was the
Government's speedy measures which had thwarted a Communist
rebellion. Goebbels was under a similar misapprehension: 'No
resistance was shown anywhere; the enemy was apparently so
taken aback by our sudden and drastic measures that he lifted no
finger in his defence.' 20

Diels has described the confusion resulting from Helldorff 's ill-
prepared action: a large number of prisoners caught by the S.A.
could not be found on the blacklists - and had to be released, only
to be caught again by the Storm Troopers. This explains why the
figures varied so much: Goring spoke first of 4,000 prisoners and
then of 5,000; Diels mentioned 1,800 arrests in Prussia, when the
official figures gave io,ooo. 21

All in all, there is little doubt that, when Hitler ordered the
arrests on the night of the Reichstag fire, he did so on the spur of the

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

moment, and in genuine fear that a Communist rebellion was

imminent That is wo the reason why Goring was able

that fer too many Communist leaders had managed, to elude Vii

net.

THE PRE-ARRANGED DATE

A further Communist argument for Nazi responsibility is that
all Nazi leaders kept 27 February suspiciously free of election
engagements. Instead, they all seemed to have repaired to Berlin
for a grandstand view of the fire.

This story saw the light of day in the Oberfohren Memorandum :

'All was prepared. On Monday 27th February, for some extraordinary
reason, not one of the National-Socialist Propaganda General Stan
was engaged in the election campaign. Hcrr Hitler, the indefatigable
orator, Herr Goebbels, Herr Gftring, all happened to be in Berlin.
With them was die Daily Express correspondent Sefton Ddmer. So,
in a cosy family party, these gentlemen waited for the fire. 9 *

What happened in fact on the night of the fire was that Goring
was at work in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior; Hitler and
Goebbels were listening to music in the company of a group of
people including Professor Hoffinann ; von Papen was entertaining
President von Hindenburg in the HerrenHub; the Foreign Office
spokesman, Dr T^aT'fcti'^nglj was in bed with tfifl^ffp^a* Count
Hdldorff was having supper in a restaurant in the Rankestrasse;
and Himmlcr was in Munich. Seen thus, the evening ofay February
seems considerably less suspicious than the Oberfohrcn Memo-
randum tnmfe it out to be.

Moreover, there was no need, even had the Nazis planned the
fire, for all the leaders to assemble in Berlin- suspiciously and quite
pointlessly. True, in his testimony to the Supreme Court in
November 193 3 , Goebbels did not produce the preceding explana-
tion, but argued instead that the pause in the election campaign had
been chosen at random in order to enable the Nazi leaders to attend
a Cabinet Meeting.

And oddly enough, no one seems to have wondered why men
who had ostensibly planned so gigantic a pre-election stunt as the
fire should have spent the whole afternoon discussing such prosaic

* Ddmer was not in fact 'with' the Nazi leaders, in this 'cosy family party'.
He met diem at the fire. See Trail Sinister, p. 185.

152

THE POLITICAL CASE

topics as changes in the milk law, the national insurance regulations,
etc. Neither did anyone wonder why the Nazi leaders were so

obviously astonished when they first heard of the fire: Goebbds
slammed down the receiver on what he thought was one of
Hanfstaengl's silly hoaxes ; Hitler, too, refused to believe the news
at first, and we know from Ludwig Grauert that Goring's surprise
was not shammed. In any case, both Goebbds and Goring ex-
pressed the view that somebody's carelessness was to blame,
and Goring repaired to the scene of the crime, where he wasted
precious hours staring at the flames and speculating about their
causes and consequences, instead of pulling his prepared plans out
of his breast pocket, or issuing his prepared newspaper and radio
communiques.

Now, it is precisely the remarkable confusion and the many
contradictions in the Nazi press after the fire, that ought to have
suggested how little Hitler, Goring and Goebbds were expecting
the fire. For if the Reichstag had really been burned by the highly
organized Nazis, their press would have thrown the blame on the
Communists from the start, instead of publishing a host of con-
tradictory rumours, allegations and denials. Dr Goebbds proved
often enough that he could order the entire German press to speak
with one drab voice. It may be argued that at the time of the Reichs-
tag fire Goebbds was not yet Minister of Propaganda and could
therefore not yet order the non-Nazi press to dance to his tune.
However, the Nazi press itself was completdy under his thumb,
so that there was no reason why the Vdlkischer Beobachter, for
instance, should give the name of the incendiary as van Durgen,
and why the man who left the Reichstag with Torgler was
variously said to have been Wilhdm Keck, Otto Kuebne and
Wilhdm Koenen. The Nazi press even mentioned the presence in
the burning Reichstag of a man who 'was identified as an
American* . aa

WAS THE FIRE BRIGADE CALLED IN TIME?

The suspicion that the Reichstag fire was started by mysterious
gave rise to a series of legends about the Berlin Fire

Brigade and its chief, Fire Director Walter Gempp, particularly
after Gempp was suddenly dismissed from his post. Once again,
the real source of these legends was the Paris Agitprop office, and

153

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

once again the German Supreme Court had to refute them*
Stilly we ought to be thankful since otherwise we should never
have been able to discover what measures the fire brigade took on
the night of the fire -all the brigade records were destroyed during
the war.

Dr Wolffhas repeated the legend that Gempp, during a meet-
ing of fire brigade officers held in Berlin early in March, com-
plained that the 'grand alarm' was given too late when, as the
former Police President of Berlin, Albert Grzesinski, told the
London Commission oflnquiry : '. . . any fire in the Government
quarters of Berlin automatically calls for the highest-stage alarm,
unless there is a specific order to the contrary/

The Brawn Book wondered who gave that order, and in whose
interest it was that

. . . the highest stage of alarm was not given to the fire brigade until
Vial-f qr) hour too late . * . by which rime the flyn^g ^a^ attained con-
siderable dimensions. . . . The delaying of ... the highest alarm,
coupled with the non-compliance with the fire regulations was
responsible for the disastrous effects of the fire in the Session Chamber,
the devastation in which was made good use of by the National
Socialist propagandists. 23

In fact, the existence of automatic regulations of the kind
mentioned by Grzesinski has never been proved. Instead, Berlin,
then as now, had a special Decree for the Alarm and Deployment of
Fire Fighting Forces, according to which fire calls from public
buildings, theatres, warehouses, factories, etc., were given various
priorities. Thus the report that the Reichstag was on fire auto-
matically set off the third-stage alarm. In other words, Grzesinski
was quite wrong to claim that every fire in the Government
quarters automatically called for the grand (fifteenth-stage) alarm.
In any case, such automatic rules would have been quite pre-
posterous, since even the smallest fire in the Government quarters
would have left the rest of the gigantic city of Berlin denuded of
fire engines. Even today, the highest-stage alarm sounded auto-
matically for any public building in West Berlin is the fifth-
stage.

If then the first report of the Reichstag fire called for 'no more
than the third-stage alarm', the question still remains why the three
sections of pumps associated witn that stage were not automatically

154

THE POLITICAL CASE

sent to the fibre. Was there perhaps a deliberate plot to sabotage the

As with so many historical events, here, too, the combination of a
series of quite independent accidents led to the strangest con-
sequences. However, the fact that there was no organized attempt
to interfere with the work of the fire brigade is proved, not only by
the evidence of firemen, but above all by the Court's recon-
struction of the actual events :

First alarm, 9.05 p.m.

At 9.05 p.m., the police officer on duty outside the Reichstag,
Sergeant Buwert, was told by two passers-by (Floter and Thaler)
that incendiaries had climbed into the Reichstag. After dithering
for a few minutes (until 9.09 p.m.), Buwert requested another
passers-by to alert the police at the Brandenburg Gate. One minute
later - at 9.10 p.m. - he also requested the passers-by Kuhl and
Freudenberg to call the fire brigade. These two sprinted to the
Engineering Institute, whence Brigade Headquarters, Linien-
strasse, were alerted at 9.13 p.m. Headquarters transmitted the call
to the 'Stettin* Brigade, in the Lindenstrasse. A minute later,
Section 6 pulled out, commanded by Chief Fire Officer Puhle.
Puhle arrived at the Reichstag at 9.18 pan. Passers-by directed him
first to the northern front, whence he drove on to the restaurant
(western front).

Second alarm, 9.15 p.m.

At 9.15 p.m., a patrolman pulled the fire alarm in the Moltke-
strasse. Section 7, under the command of Fire Officer Klotz
immediately left the 'Moabit' Brigade in the Turmstrasse, reaching
the Reichstag four minutes later. When he saw the four vehicles of
Section 6 outside the Western Entrance, Klotz drove on with three
of his vehicles, leaving the fourth, commanded by Hre Officer
Wald, at the south-western corner. Klotz stopped briefly outside
Portal Two (south) which was locked, and then went on to Portal
Five (north), the only entrance which was kept open at night. He
arrived there at about 9.20 p jn.

Third alarm, 9.19 p.m.

At 9.17 p.m., immediately after his arrival at the Reichstag,
Police Lieutenant Lateit ordered Sergeant Buwert not only to
watch the windows and to fire at anything suspicious, but also to
give the 'grand alarm'. Since Buwert could not possibly carry out

155

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

both orders, he decided to remain -where he -was until a fellow
policeman arrived on the scene. By that time the fire brigade had
decided to sit tight, since two sections of pumps had already been
sent out, and since, in any case, the 'grand alarm' had no precise
txy-]i"jral significance. During the trial, Buwert -was given a severe
dressing down by the Public Prosecutor for having carried out the
first part of his order first: 'Should you not have known that the
last order always takes precedence?' 24

Fourth alarm, 9.3 1 p.m.

Fire Officer Wali gave the tenth-stage alarm by telephone from
Portal Five at 9.3 1 p jn.

Fifth alarm, 9.32 p.m.

Immediately afterwards at 9.32 p.m. the tenth-stage alarm
was given, once again fromPortal Five. Altogether eight sections of
pumps were now on the way to the Reichstag, in addition to the
two sections that had meanwhile arrived. With them came Chief
Fire Director Gempp, Fire Directors Lange and Tamm, and Chief
Government Surveyor Meusser.

Sixth alarm, 9.33 p.m.

Chief Fire Officer Puhle ordered Fireman Trappe to give the
fifth-stage alarm from the Engineering Institute, but when Trappe
did so he was told that the tenth-stage alarm had already been
sounded.
Seventh alarm, 9.42 p.m.

Immediatelva^hisarrivalattheReichst^, ChiefFire Director
Gempp consulted Fire Director Lange and then gave orders for the
fifteenth-stage alarm to be sounded. Chief Government Surveyor
Meusser gave the same orders on his own authority.

Since every section consisted of four vehicles, no less tlhari sixty
fire-fighting vehicles were now drawn up round the Reichstag. At
the same time a number of fire-boats had begun to fight die fire
from the River Spree.

The time-table we have just drawn up shows why Dr Sack,
Torgler's counsel, was able to speak with some justification of the
'exceptionally quick mobilization of the fire brigade'. Still, the
question remains why the very first telephone call did not lead to
titic automatic and prompt dispatch of at least the three sections
which the regulations demanded.

THE POLITICAL CASE

From the study of all the evidence given at the preliminary
"mination and at the trial, the following explanations emerge :

1. Wlien the fire was reported to Brigade Headquarters from
die Engineering Institute, the caller apparently said it was a
minor fire. In order not to deplete the central brigade of all its
pumps for the sake of a minor fire, only one section was sent out.

2. When the second alarm was sounded from the Moltko-
strasse fire alarm, the call went automatically to Brigade Head-
quarters, and hence to tie 'Moabit' Brigade which sent out
Section 7. Headquarters still felt that two sections were more
than enough to deal with an iyiyiprni-fira-nt- fire.

3. Prom that moment - 9.15 p.m. - until the tenth-stage
alarm was given at 9.31 or 9.32 p.m., no further alarm was
received by Brigade Headquarters. It seemed reasonable to
assume, therefore, that the two sections were quite adequate.

4. Brigade Headquarters also inferred that die fire was under
control from the fact that none of the fire-alarms in the House
itself had been pulled. Had that been done, three sections would
undoubtedly have gone out straightaway.

Night porter Albert Wendt, whom Constable Poeschel had
asked to pull die fire alarm in his lodge, had not done so for the
following reasons: firstly he simply refused to believe PoescheTs
story before he had checked it; then, when he saw" the blazing
restaurant, Lateit told him the fire brigade had already been called;
finally, as he returned to ni lodge, he could hear the jangle of the
_ fire brigade. Wendt could not have known that
j was a difference between calling the brigade from inside and
outside the House.

The time-table shows that the fir.e officers themselves gave the
tenth-stage alarm thirty minutes after the arrival of the first section.
During tat interval, the fire in the Session Chamber had grown to
unmanageable proportions. The alleged 'omission' of the fire
officers to give the tenth-stage alarm sooner was due to the
following reasons:

At 9.22 or 9.23 p.m., Section 6 under Chief Fire Officer Puhle,
used ladders to enter the restaurant. There they found a burning
window curtain draped over a table, a burning door, and another

p\| f pin or ^^if ^o^n,

IS7

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

All these fires were immediately put out. Then Puhle walked
through the scorched door into the lobby where he met men from
Section 7. The restaurant and the lobby were filled with smoke
which he thought mn? from the restaurant. He therefore con-
cluded that two sections were more than enough. "When the
remains of van der Lubbe's firelighters were discovered in the
restaurant, Puhle ordered a search of all the neighbouring rooms.
During the search Puhle himself entered the Session Chamber.
Recently, he described his impression as follows :

When. I entered the Chamber, I saw much the same picture as on the
other floors and rooms: a *1 veil of smoke, but no sign of fire. . . .
When I returned to the Chamber after a further inspection, I was
suddenly faced, with a large fire, and I frnin^iately ordered Trappe
to give the fifth-stage alarm.**

Meanwhile, many ytnallffr fires for irKfemrg bits of carpet that
had caught fire when van der Lubbe's burning firelighters or
burning rags had dropped on them -were quickly stamped out or
extinguished. As a result, many of these minor fires were sur-
rounded with moist spots, which gave many journalists and
particularly Pablo Hesslein the wrong impression that they were
so many 'pools of petrol'.

Douglas Reed, who followed all the evidence most carefully,
came to the following conclusion:

Hie firemen, ignorant of what was happening in the Session Chamber,
devoted their attention to *h<- small fire in *hg* restaurant "which they
quickly extinguished, so tli^i- Thaler, looking back from the Victory
Column, thought they were already packing up to go home. Firemen,
then, were already in the Reichstag when the fire in the Session
Chamber was in its first beginnings, but were busying themselves
with, the significant- outbreak in the restaurant. By the time they
reached the Session Chamber, it was too late. 28

Reed's reference to Thaler is explained by the latter's testimony
to the Supreme Court on 10 October 1933 :

I remained on the spot for a brief time, after which I and the other
passers-by who had meanwhile gathered there were pushed back by
officers of the flying squad. All the passers-by dispersed, and I crossed
towards the Lehrter BahnhoE . . . When I reached the end of the
Victory Column, I turned round once again. Quite suddenly I noticed

158

THE POLITICAL CASE

a deep red glow in the dome of the Reichstag. I a<t$nrnrd that the fire
had grown to large proportions, ran back to the Reichstag building,
and reported my observation to the fire brigade. 27

In a 'radio report from the desolate chamber', Fire Director
Gempp also explained that the fire brigade had at first thought the
fire was restricted to the restaurant alone: "The first section from
the Linienstrasse found nothing except the two fires in the
restaurant. Only when they were ready to leave again, did they
hear of a third fire/

Not only the fire officers, however, had the impression that the
fire was relatively harmless, for Police Officers Lateit and Losigkeit
were of precisely the same opinion. Lateit later told the Court that,
in his view, the Chamber could easily have been saved, had the fire
in it been discovered in time.

None of these factors - except the last one, of course - might
have been crucial by itself but coming as they did on top of one
another, they led to the complete destruction of the Chamber.

Oddly enough, Douglas Reed was the only observer to have
considered the actual evidence - most other observers were com-
pletely taken in by the Brown Book allegations which, for their part,
rested on the flimsiest of speculations.

Tn short, the fi retried did their best in difficult circumstances, and
there is not the slightest shred of evidence that anyone tried to
obstruct them in their -work.

THE GEMPP AFFAIR

At about the same time that Dr Oberfbhren y*ifl<fc lii exit from
the political stage, another prominent personality suddenly left his
job: the Chief of the Berlin Fire Brigade, Herr Walter Gempp.
He, too, was seized upon by theBroumBooky which turned him into
yet another poor victim of the Reichstag fire 'conspiracy*. How-
ever, the real facts of the Gempp case were far less flattering to the
Herr Direktor.

After the Reichstag fire, Chief Fire Director Gempp, an
extremely popular man, was hailed by the Berlin press for the
speed with which he had acted. No one blamed him tor the loss of
lie Chamber, for it was generally appreciated that, once the glass
dome had cracked, it acted as a giant chimney, spitting fire andheat
into the dark night. That was also the reason why the fire was

159

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

controlled so quickly once the flames had consumed, everything
combustible in the Chamber.

Hence the Vdlkischer Beobachter could speak of die 'quick and
decisive intervention of the fire brigade 9 and add that its handling
of this fire had been exemplary. On i March, the Vdlkischer
Beobachter further published Hitler's motion in the Cabinet (28
February 1933), 'that this Cabinet expresses its gratitude to all
Reichstag officials, the police and the fire brigade, for their unstint-
ing efforts in subduing the flames/

Next day, Hitler sent a special letter to Hermann Goring, the
Minister responsible for the German fire-fighting services. That
letter, which was published in all German papers, read as follows:

Hie foul attack launched, yesterday by Communist criminals against
the Reichstag was thwarted within a few hours, thanks only to the
swift action, of the Berlin fire brigade, and the resolute leadership and
personal courage of individual firemen.* 8

Though Gempp had received similar praises (and the Kronen-
orden) from Kaiser Wilhelm n, and from President Hindenburg,
he was not allowed to bask in die favour of the new rulers for long -
zealous brown rats began quickly to gnaw at his reputation*
Goring's noisily promulgated. *Anti-Corruption Law* was en-
couraging a growing army of Nazi job-hunters to denounce their
superiors. Every day the newspapers were full of sensational
'revelations 1 about the alleged misdeeds of die great - including
such respectable and honourable men as, for instance, Dr Adenauer,
and the former Prussian Ministers Braun and Severing, who were
said to have embezzled millions of marks.

On 25 March 1933, the Vdlkischer Beobachter published the
following laconic note:

At the request of State Commissioner Drlippert, Chief Fire Director
Gempp and Chief Clerk Drescher were given indefinite leave of
absence. Gempp is succeeded by Fire Director Wagner, and Drescher
by Inspector Fond. Other staff changes are expected.

Thoujgh sudden dismissals had become the order of the day,
Gempp's case was bound to attract very special attention: unlike
most of the other victims, he had never played the slightest part in
politics so that there was no possible reason why he should have
focused National Socialist resentment on himself. The Vo$sische

160

THE POLITICAL CASE

Zeitung expressed its dismay on 25 March 1933 in a brief report
entitled 'Chief Fire Dkector Gempp Dismissed' :

It is still not known what motives swayed the State Commission to
dismiss the tested leader of the Berlin Fire Brigade, a ?r?n who has
devoted twenty-seven years to the service of the City of Berlin. This
much alone we know: Gempp, who is fifty-five years old, helped
to make the Berlin Hre Brigade the pride of all Berliners. The
thousands of foreigners who come to us in order to study fire-fighting
are full of admiration for Gempp's work.

Once this article was published, the authorities could no longer
keep quiet, and published the following communiqu6 :

Director Gempp, Chief of the Berlin Hre Brigade, who was pro-
visionally granted leave of absence by State Commissioner Dr
Lippert, was accused of having tolerated Communist intrigues in the
service under his control, Gempp then requested that disciplinary
proceedings should be started against him. This request was not
granted at the time, in view of the fact that Gempp was suspected of
other offences. Disciplinary proceedings have now been opened
against him; he is charged with dereliction of duty under Section
266 of the Criminal Code in connection with the purchase of a motor
car by an ex-official, the Social Democratic councillor Ahrens.

Needless to say, most people preferred to believe a different
story. Thus ex-Reidhsprasident L5be explained that Gempp was
hounded to death 'because he was die only one to look into the real
causes of the Reichstag fire*, 29 and according to Pablo Hesslein, 80
Gempp was punished lor what he said at a press conference shortly
after Hitler left the burning Reichstag :

Chief Hre Director Gempp, who spoke first, was visibly excited. He
stated quite openly that the fire was a well-planned affair involving a
number of people, and that he had counted some 25-30 specially
prepared areas which were meant to catch fire but did not. A Dutch-
man had been caught in the act, and fral been described as tVi*> sole
incendiary, but it was quite impossible for a single man to have started
so many fires within so short a space of time. The last Reichstag
officials had left the building some time after 8 p.m. and the first
alarm was received at 8.45 p.m.; consequently van der Lubbe, who
entered the building in a most mysterious way, would have had, at
most, 20-35 minutes in which to do his work.

Now, even this brief report contains a series of errors which

161

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

was unlikely to have committed. Firstly, there were no
^ 'prepared areas' that failed to catch fire, nor was the first
L received at 8.45. Marinus van der Lubbe entered" the Reich-
stag through a window in a most unmysterious manner, and the
last Reichstag officials left the building well before and not 'some
time after' 8 p.m.

Hesdein continues: 'Gempp was immediately suspended and
placed under house arrest. A few months later, after he had sworn
an oath of silence, he was finally dismissed. 9

This allegation, too, is false, just as false as the many lies about
Gempp which the Brown Book published at the time. Because of his
alleged refusal to let the Nazis get away with it, Gempp was even
elevated to the role of Resistance fighter by many misinformed
observers:

Hie Reichstag fire faced this man, who was respected at home and
abroad as an outs***** 1 A* n g crtgfo^cr arirl a conscientious official* with a
decision that was to cost Vitm not only his job but also frfa life. Because
his conscience was not for sale, Gempp felt impelled, during a con-
ference with his inspectors and officers, to correct the official story. 81

At this conference Gempp is alleged, to have told his officers:

1. that the fire brigade had been summon**! too late;

2. that he - Gempp - had met an S.A. detachment when he
arrived at the scene of the fire;

3. that Goring had expressly forbidden him to circulate a general
call and to summon stronger forces to fight the fire;

4. that undamaged parts of the building contained enough
incendiary material to nil a lorry.

And, having made these 'corrections' which clearly refuted the
Nazis' claim mat the Reichstag had been burned by Communists,

As one historian, who believed the Brown Book story that Gempp
was one of those people who knew too much and whom the Nazis
had to get rid of, put it :

Not even, his dismissal was enough to satisfy the new rulers. They
tittered the vilest slanders, persecuted him, and finally arrested him in
September, 1937. At a put-up trial he was charged with misde-
meanour, and duly convicted, Gempp appealed, but shortly before
the appeal was heard, on May 2nd, 1939, he was found dead in his
cell

162

THE POLITICAL CASE

The Brotim Book added that Councillor Ahrens was dismissed
and arrested for exactly the same reasons. Now, had Gempp and
Ahrens really been such dangerous witnesses, one wonders why the
Nazis did not use their tested method of shooting them 'while
trying to escape*, why Ahrens was set free soon after his arrest so
that he could survive Hitler's glorious Third Reich (he died in West
Berlin in I95?)> and why Gempp was given the chance of refuting
the 'trumped-up* charges against hi', and hence of exposing his
detractors in open Court.

Gempp's alleged 'corrections' were first published on 21 April
1933 in La Republique and four days later in the Saarbruckener
Volksstimme.

At the time, it was extremely risky to publish such dangerous
stories abroad, for they -were likely tojeopardize the lives of men
'who were completely at the mercy ofa ruthless dictator. Luckily
for Gempp and for Ahrens, they could easily prove that the whole
article was a fabrication.

As a result, the Brown Book was forced to 'explain* :

Caring, who had not the courage himself to deny what the Saar-
brUckener Volksstimme reported, compelled Gempp to issue a dementi.
Gempp seems to have refused to do so for along time. It was only on
June 1 8th, 1933, that a statement by him appeared in the German
press, in whichhe declared that die report published in the Volksstimme
was false. . . . Under the pressure of the charges made against him, and
from fear of imprisonment with which he was threatened, Gempp
gave way to Gdring's threats. 82

On the very day when Gempp was alleged to have held his staff
conference and to have criticized, the official story of the fire, he
gave an interview to iheBerlinerLokalanzeiger:

The fire brigade came across two main fires and countless little fires.
The fires had all been started with firelighters, paraffin and petroL
One fire was discovered in the immpjiate vicinity of the Chancellor's
office. The carpet was charred. A large fire -was also blazing in the
restaurant. In the Session Chamber, the Speaker's Chair, the deputies'
benches and the tribunes were almost completely destroyed. Frag-
ments of the cracked wall had fallen down. The dome itself did not
collapse, only the glass ceiling . Individual girders were melted by the

Moreover, a Swiss journalist, Ferdinand Kugler, wrote on the
subject of die 'Gempp affair' during the Leipzig trial:

163

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Of special interest is the evidence of Berlin's ex-Krc Chief Gcmpp,
-who was dismissed shortly after the Reichstag fire, and who was
supposed to have been murdered.

First hr df^la 1 ^^ with a broad smile that he -was, of course, the samg
Herr Gempp who had directed the fire brigade on February 27th, . . .
He was then questioned by the President of the Court :

Dr BOnger: *You have been asked to appear before this Court
because of certain newspaper articles and remarks in the Brown Book.
The Brown Book alleges that, after the fire, you held a conference with

the fire brigade had been summoned too late, that 20 Storm Troopers
were at the scene of the fire by the time the fire brigade finally
appeared, that the Prussian Minister of the Interior, GQiing, had ex-
pressly forbidden you to circulate a general c^^ and that those parts of
the Reichstag building which were not destroyed were found to con-
tain large quantities of unused incendiary material which would have
completely filled a lorry. I request your comments on these points/
Gempp: 1 have been ncard on these points more than once, first by
a representative from State Commissioner Dr Lippert's office, and
again by the Secret State Police. In both cases I have declared that all
these allegations are pure nonsense. I found no Storm Troopers on

these allegations are pure nonsense. I found no Storm Troopers on
my arrival at least not in large numbers, for one or two mignt have
been there whom I cannot remember neither did I find large quanti-
ties of incendiary material. As for my discussion, or rather meeting,
with Minister Gftring, this is what happened : roughly fifteen minutes
after I arrived at the Reichstag, I spotted the Minister and some
gentlemen in the southern wing, I immediately approached him in
order to give him a full report, for he -was my highest superior. The
Minister walked with me towards Portal Two. I described the
damage, the fire-fighting forces we had deployed, and soon. The
Minister then asked me if I had seen the Director of the Reichstag,
Herr Galle. That was the only question he put to me. When I asked
if he had any instructions for me, the Minister replied: "Please don't
let me detain you. You are in charge here." *

Gempp went on to say that the conference he held with his
inspectors had been pure routine. Such conferences were convened
after every large fire.

Gempp further declared that no pressure had been brought to
bear on him to deny the Brown Book allegations, and that the
d&menti he had issued to the press on 18 June had been given quite
freely. Neither had he ever been placed under arrest or in any way
attacked in connection with the Reichstag fire.

164

THE POLITICAL CASE

In this connection we must now refer to the subsequent state-
ment of Councillor Ahrens whom the Brown Book was forced to
turn into the 'real* source of the corrections once Gempp had let the
Communists down so badly. Ahrens not only repeated Gempp's
explanation of what had really happened at the official conference
on the morning after the fire, but added that he thought Gempp far
too intelligent to call Goring a liar before so large a crowd, even
had he believed that a correction was called for.

After the war, ex-Chief Fire Officer Pmil Puhle, who had also
attended Gempp's conference, confirmed that only ordinary
routine questions were discussed. He added: It is nonsense to
suggest that Goring prohibited the circulation of a general call,
when, in fact, the tenth-stage alarm was given fairly early on.* 84

In fact, though Gempp smiled when he told the Supreme Court
that he was the man who had extinguished the Reicnstag fire, he
could not have been very happy. His vaunted conscience was any-
thing but dear, and he would very much have liked not to be in the
ItmHiglit of public attention right then.

It is quite true that Gempp was originally charged with tolerating
Communist intrigues in tie Berlin Fire Brigade, and later with a
dereliction of duty in connection with the purchase of a motor car.
However, the real charges against him were being kept secret at the
time, because they might have shaken public confidence in
Goring's great pet: the Prussian Civil Service.

In the summer of 1932, Dr Pitzsdhke, a former chief adviser to
Minimax, the internationally renowned makers of fire-ex-
tinguishers, started a legal action against his erstwhile employers.
Inter alia he alleged that Minimax were on the verge ofbankruptey
because they had spent 'vast sums of money on bribing public
servants'. Though the Court ruled that Dr Ktzschke had no case,
the Presiding Judge nevertheless informed the Public Prosecutor of
Dr Pitzschke s allegations. This happened on 24 January 1933, Le.
before Hitler came to power.

The whole affair culminated four years later in a monster trial
which had far-reaching repercussions but not the slightest political
background. Gradually more and more leading fire officers were
inculpated, some of whom later took their lives. The trial, which
started on 29 September, was concluded on I July 1938, when
Judge Bohmer read the verdict: Friedrich C^tn9fnlnnmfr t a
director of Minimax, was found guilty on sixteen charges of

165

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

bribery and sentenced to two^and-a-half years' imprisonment.
Chief Fire Director Walter Gempp was sentenced to two years*
hard labour, loss of civic rights for three years and confiscation of
15,600 marks. Because of repeated acceptance of bribes, seventeen
of the eighteen accused fire directors, engineers, fire officers, etc.,
from Berlin, Cologne and Munich, were sentenced to hard labour
or imprisonment.

Gempp himself cut rather a poor figure during his trial. It
appeared that although he lived rent-free, and earned a monthly net
salary of 1 ,000 marks, an annual bonus of 2,000 marks from the City
of Berlin and of 1,200 marks from the Prussian Fire Department -
not to mention his consultant's fees and royalties - he nevertheless
allowed Gunsenheimer to press quite a number of envelopes con-
taining from 1,500 to 1,800 marks into his greedy hands. Gunsen-
heimer had carefully and discreetly kept a record of all these sums,
using the secret code:

1234567890
universal o

Though Gempp had learned of the charges against hjm well
before the trial, he steadfastly refused to admit to his shady dealings
with Minimax. Even after the police raided Gunsenheirtier and
discovered his meticulously kept records, Gempp merely admitted
to having been Minimax's official adviser - for a fee of 300 marks a
month.

However, all these evasions proved of no avail. The Court not
only found against him but even refused to take his excellent record
into consideration:

Hie accused Gempp was Head of the Berlin fire service which -
thanks largely to him - was finned fax beyond the boundaries of Berlin
and the borders of the Reich. As Chief fire Director, he held a
respected and highly-paid position which together with his con-
siderable other earnings - quite apart from his own and his wife's
private incomes - guaranteed him so high a standard of living that
ne and his family went short of absolutely nothing. And yet Gempp
saw fit to accept bribes from Minima-*- over the years, and to render
to Minima* services incompatible with his office. By accepting sums
amounting to 15,600 marks, Gempp received the third highest sum
of money Minimax spent on bribery. The Court has not taken into
account the many lavish presents he was given in addition to this. A

166

THE POLITICAL CASE

chief of the Kre Brigade who, despite his excellent income, sees fit to
lend himself to such, corrupt practices, to set his subordinates so bad
an example, and to sully the reputation of the Berlin Bire Brigade in
the way ne has done, must be punished with the full severity of die
law.

The Court also takes a most serious view of the fact that the accused
showed no signs of remorse, but tried to cover up his actions with all
manner of stupid and mendacious excuses, as for example the fable
that he was a bona fide consultant to W. G. [Managing Director of
Miramax].

Others to be pilloried by the Court included such well-known
'patriots 9 as Fire Director P., who was sentenced to only one-and-a-
half years' imprisonment because 'the Court took into account the
part he played in Germany's rebirth', and Chief Engineer R.,
who had shown so much devotion to the national cause'.

All this explains why the Nazi press was so anxious to play this
gigantic scandal down. None of the accused was a Jew, a Marxist, a
Freemason - all were tested Prussian officials whose blood was as
unobjectionable as their politics.

No more need be said about the 'mysterious' circumstances
surrounding Gempp's death - like so many of his co-accused he
committed suicide before the sentence became legally binding.
Hie allegation that he was killed because he might have betrayed
tli a Nazi Reichstag iiyepflfangs is absurd: the Minirnax trfal lasted
for a total of 123 days, during which time Gempp had ample
opportunity to say what he liked. In fact, Gempp was turned into a
martyr for purely political reasons, and it is sad -but unavoidable -
that we have had to strip him of his halo. Gempp's suicide - and
there is no doubt whatever that it was suicide- was the last act of a
man who, though brilliant at his job, would not resist the
temptation to which all successful public servants are continuously
exposed.

THREE FURTHER BROWN BOOK SUSPECTS

In 1957, when the journalist Curt Riess tried to repeat one of the
many Brown Book slanders, he was threatened with a libel action
and withdrew the charge, viz. that:

Amongst Gdring's confidential men was a certain Dr Lepsius, who
later gave evidence at the trial Although he occupied a high position
in the Air Ministry, Dr Lepsius certainly had no official authority or

167

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

fications requisite to conduct the interrogation of a political incendiary
[van der Lubbe]. . . . On the fourteenth, day of the trial he told the
Court how, afterwards, he had retraced with van der Lubbe the route
which the Latter had taken in firing the Reichstag. . . . What precise
interest Dr Lepsius - not a police or judicial official - had in interro-
gating van der Lubbe, much more in retracing his path in the Reichs-
tag, remained unexplained. Perhaps it was that Dr Lepsius was better
acquainted with the geography ox the Reichstag than van der Lubbe
and so was able to assist him in the choice of route. 85

Dr Lepsius, an internationally renowned chemist and one of a
long line of scholars, could not possibly allow this libel to go un-
answered. He had never even met Goring, and he held no position
at all in the Air Ministry, let alone a high one. His only connection
with flying and this shows what mental acrobatics the fir0iwiJ300fe
authors were capable of - was that, as a chemist, he had been, co-
opted to the Air Defence League. On behalf of that body, he had
requested Under-Secretary Schmid to admit him to the Reichstag
on the day after the fire, so that he could pursue his studies of the
effects of incendiary bombs on massive buildings.

The detectives - including Heisig and Dr Zirpins - who had just
Lubbc'

over van der Lubbc's route - -were so impressed with Dr
Lepsius' s letter of introduction that they irnmf^iat^ly acceded to
his request and asked van der Lubbe to retrace his steps once again.
Dr Lepsius then asked van der Lubbe a number of questions about
each individual fire, and came away with the firm conviction that
the fires had been started precisely in die way van der Lubbe had
told him.
In particular,

. . . the witness [Dr Lepsius] took the occasion to ask van der Lubbe
whether he had specially set fire to the curtains over the door in order
to burn the Session Chamber. Van der Lubbe said no, and explained
that the Session Chamber had probably caught fire because the flames
from the curtains had leapt across to the panelling. 86

Dr Lepsius thereupon examined the Reichstag curtains more
closely and learned from the Director of the Reichstag, Gchcimrat
Galle, that they had been put up dozens of years earlier. He
concluded correctly that they were extremely inflammable. We
shall have to return to this point again.

....

168

THE POLITICAL CASE

It was Dimitrov's persistent questions which threw suspicion on
Dr Herbert Albrecht, Nazi deputy and 'standard-bearer of Troop
33', as he proudly described himself in the Reichstag handbook*

On the night of the fire, Dr Albrecht, who was staying in a
boarding-house some fifty yards from the Reichstag, had retired to
bed with infhimga. He was suddenly alerted when a maid shouted
through the open door: "The Reichstag is on fire.' Despite his
illness, he immediately got up, for he remembered to his horror that
important family papers including, of all things, the proof of his
'Aryan* descent were kept in the Reichstag offices of the National
Socialist Party. He dressed quickly and, not bothering to put on a
collar, a tie, or a hat, rushed across to the burning House. At
Portal Five he was challenged by a police official, and allowed to
pass when he showed his deputy's card. Dr Albrecht raced up the
stairs, collected his papers and stormed out of the building 'as if in
flight'. "When he had just passed Portal Five, he was challenged and
- because he did not obey at once - fetched back by a policeman. A
Reichstag official then told the officer :

'He's all right. I know him.'

When Dr Albrecht tried to return to the Reichstag a little later,
perhaps to salvage other valuables, he was turned bade, for Goring
had meanwhile given orders not to admit anyone.

This incident had already been discussed in the Police Court,
when Albert Wendt, the porter who had been on duty at Portal
Five on the night of the fire, told an attentive audience - including
Douglas Reed - that a collarless and hatless deputy had rushed out
of the Reichstag at iop.m., and that he, Wendt, could swear that he
had not let him in through the only open Portal.

However, even while the fire had still been raging, detectives had
checked Albrecht' s alibi, and found that it was unshakeable. As a
result, Judge Vogt decided quite rightly that there was no need to
subpoena Dr Albrecht to the main triaL

.

Alexander Scranowitz, Reichstag House-Inspector from 1930 to
1945, was another favourite Brown Book suspect,

In 1904, Scranowitz, who held an honourable discharge from the
German Navy, was given a job in the Reichstag. He slowly worked
his way up the ladder : in 1927 he became Assistant House-Inspector,
and in 193 o on the death of his predecessor - he was promoted to
the position he held at the time of the fire.

169

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Scranowitz was a tall and powerfully-built man, who chose to
wear his Kaiser moustache even under the Republic. Though he had
served the Reichstag most faithfully for thirty years, the Brown Book
saw fit to accuse him of dereliction of duty, and to stamp him a
Nazi for good measure*

On February 27th, the National Socialist inspector of the building
released the officials on duty at one o'clock in tne afternoon. The staff
told him that it was contrary to the terms of their employment to
leave before the end of their spell of duty.

Crude though this slander was, it must nevertheless have caused
Scranowitz a great deal of anguish- Thus the Presiding Judge asked
Scranowitz on 14 October 1933 :

I have seen a press report to the effect that you took the unusual step
of dismissing all *h^ officials before they had completed their duty, to
be precise at I p.rou, and that the statt lodged a protest with you. Is
that really so?

Scranowitz replied that he had neither dismissed the staff nor had
he had the power to do so. He added that, even if he had, it seemed
most unlikely that the staff -would have objected. In any case, it had
by then been fully established that not a single one of Scranowitz's
many subordinates bad been sent home.

InanswertoaqiicstionbyDrSack^ScranowitercpHedtliatniost
of die officials on duty at t rim^ of the fire were old-timers, and
that the Nazis had not sacked a single one of them.

Because Scranowitz had been called a National Socialist in the
Brown Book, the Assistant Public Prosecutor, Dr Parrisius, asked
frim whether he would care to tell the Court what his political
opinions were. Scranowitz replied:

When I came to Ac Rrirhstag in 1904, 1 met an old tt^Vstflg official,
Maas by name. He told me: 'Scranowitz, as Reichstag employees,
we have to serve every party alike. Take my advice and don't join
any of them.' And that is precisely what I have done. To *V" day I
have not belonged to a party. Still, you may say I hold Rightist views.

Accordingly, theBroumBook changed its original account into:

The suspicions against this official, of decided National Socialist
leanings (sid) were shortly indicated in the Brown Book Scranowitz's
denial in Court cannot be regarded too seriously inasmuch as he stated

170

THE POLITICAL CASE

that he himself had gone home at 3 p.m., which was not his usual
hour."

In feet, Scranowitz left the Reichstag at 2.45 p.m., for the simple
reason that he had a doctor's appointment. Later, while he was
sitting at dinner, he was alarmed by the noise of fire engines. He
sprang to the window, and seeing that the fire brigade had stopped
across the road, he immediately rang the porter's lodge to find out
what -was happening. The telephone was answered by Albert
Wendt, who told Scranowitz that the restaurant was on fire.
Whereupon Scranowitz roared at him :

'And why the dickens didn't you report it to me? 9 , slammed down
the receiver . . . dashed into the bathroom, grabbed my shoes and
shouted to my wife and my son: 'Notify the Speaker and the
Director,' slipped on my jacket and coat and rushed out of the house.
I finished A risin as I ran.

Dr Wolff has attacked Scranowitz because

. . . shortly before his death [1955] he published two newspaper
articles in which he still asserted that van der Lubbe had no accom-
plices and burned the Reichstag alone. This self-confessed Rightist
played a very strange role in the whole affair.

And Dr Wolff went on to mention the observations of firemen,
according to whom Scranowitz's

. . . only concern was to get the brigade to save a precious Gobelin
tapestry. When a number of people asked the House-Inspector why
he was less worried about the House than about the tapestry, he

alained that this valuable piece was one of the articles that France
claimed as part of the German reparation payments after World
War I.

What the firemen could not have known, but what Dr Wolff
himself could have read in Dr Sack's book (op. cit., p. 20) would
have made Scranowitz's 'only concern' far less suspicious than it
looked:

GSring knows that the House contains two irreplaceable treasures:
the library and the Gobelin tapestries which were kept in a room
behind the diplomats' box. "The Gobelins must be saved, the Minister
cried. His first care was for these irreplaceable works of art.

Dr Wolff went on to quote from a truly astonishing article by his

171

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

friend, the late Pablo Hesslein. 88 Apparently Hcsslein heard of the
fire as early as 8.30 p.m., and saw the fire from the Victory Column
at 9 p.m. before van der Lubbe had even entered the building ! He
then witnessed the arrival of the Cabinet, and heard Papen's
denunciation of the Communists. Hitler and the rest

apparently left the building in complete silence.

Then Hesslein and other journalists were invited by a Reichstag
official - obviously Scranowitz - to join a conducted tour of the
building: *In the lobby leading to the Reichstag restaurant, we
noticed that the thick carpets had been soaked in petroL In the
restaurant, too, we found similar pools . . .'

In feet, the 'petrol pools' were pools of water, squirted on the
carpets by the fire brigade. While this was a forgivable error, the
rest of Hesslein' s story is not. Thus, no one will believe his claim
that he heard the Director of the Reichstag, Geheimrat Galle,
assert that:

GSring had ordered all Reichstag officials without exception to leave
the House punctually at 8 p.m. This order applied to him, Galle, as
well, so that . . . die Reichstag was completely deserted from 8 pjn.
onwards.

Once again we have the assumption that the Speaker of the
Reichstag - even had he wanted to set fire to the House - would
have been stupid enough to give a way his intentions by such blatant
orders. Then we are asked to swallow the claim that Geheimrat
Galle, the very prototype of a conservative official 9 (Neue Zurcher
Zeitung 9 2,i OctxM3CXi933),w-ouldhaveobeyedanorder.ofthatkind.

This sensational article by Hesslein caused Dr Wolff to write to
Galle's widow, who quite naturally replied that she thought the
whole story unlikely, and that '. . . although her husband had
never discussed official business with her, he would certainly have
dropped a hint about this particular matter during the long years of
his retirement'.

In footnote 36 of his Reichstag fire report, Dr Wolff further
mentions a letter by the former Director of the Reichstag library,
Professor Fischer Baling, which included the following sentence:
*I was present at his [Scranowitz's] interrogation and did not gain
the impression that he was telling

Now that impression was absolutely correct, for at the time it
'would have been extremely dangerous for Alexander Scranowitz

172

THE POLITICAL CASE

to tell what he knew or - rather - what he thought he knew.
He came out with it long after the war, when he admitted. *quite
openly' that he had said nothing about the ridiculous official
theories to anyone except a small circle of close friends *because he
had believed that the truth would come out anyway, once aU the
stored-up bitterness gave way to quiet objectivity. Now, however,
he felt he could keep quiet no longer'. 89

And the old gentleman - he had recently turned seventy-two -
added in broad Berlin dialect :

It's not that I don't think Adolf and his gang couldn't have done it,
it's just that they didn't happen to have anything to do with the Reich-
stag fire. And when your paper published aU that stuff about a secret
passage and about Storm Troopers blundering about in die burning
building, I really did feel my gorge rise.

Scranowitz went on to call himself the 'chief witness' in the Fire
Trial, and, in fact, that is precisely what he was, though only in a
certain sense: he was responsible for the commonly held idea that
the fire had spread with supernatural' speed, or as he himself put it
at the trial:

I looked into the Session Chamber for a mere fraction of a second.
The whole top of the Speaker's Chair was blazing away. Behind die
Speaker's Chair, three curtains were burning quite steadily. The
individual flamgg were quite distinct. In addition, I saw flatnpf on both
the Government and the Federal Council benches, though I cannot
state with certainty whether in the first or second row. These flames
represented individual, completely independent, fires, bunched
together into pyramids, each twelve to twenty inches at die base, and
some twenty to twenty-five inches in height.

I made out similar bundles of flames on the first rows of deputies 9
seats - fifteen of them in alL I also spotted a fire on die Orator's Table,
flanked by the burning curtains of the stenographers' well below. I
quickly slammed the door shut.

As a result of this evidence, based on observations during *a
fraction of a second', die judges and experts alike underplayed the
testimony of the police officers who saw something far less

When Lateit pushed die door open, and looked across die downward
sloping rows of benches, he saw a fire which he estimated at some ten
feet wide by twelve feet high. The fire was topped by tongues of

173

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

flame so that it looked like 2 'flaming church organ 9 . The flames
themselves were extremely steady. Lateit saw no flames to the right
or left of this 'organ', Le. on the Government or Federal Council
benches, nor could he detect any smoke. Poeschel and Losigkeit, -who
were looking over Lateit's shoulder, observed the same picture. 40

Hence Lateit had every reason to think that the fire could be put
out very quickly. Moreover, his testimony tallied with van der
Lubbc's.

One Swiss correspondent had this to say on the difference
between Scranowitz's and Lateit's evidence :

Not even the late Edgar "Wallace could have hit upon a. more intricate
plot than the one that came out at this trial Who is the magician? In
this trial the great denouement does not coincide with the dramatic
climax. On the contrary, at 9.22 p.m., one minute after Police Lieu-
tenant Lateit saw the lonely 'fire organ' on the Speaker's Chair
[actually: behind the Speaker's Chair] a second witness looked into
the Chamber, and saw a completely different picture: the first three
rows of the semicircular deputies' seats were aglow with twenty to
twenty-five small pyramid-shaped fires, each about twenty inches
wide, all of equal height, and neatly placed at regular intervals of
five feet rrom^one another, just as if an assembly ornery spirits were
holding a meeting. Other flam<^ of equal height and of the same
bright-red colour -were neatly distributed over the government
benches to the right and the left of the Speaker's Chair. A similar fire
was blazing on the Orator's Table. At its feet another flame had leapt
across the solid oak 'Table of the House'. But the palm of this parlia-
mentary Walpurgis Night went to a larger fire, some thirty inches
high, above the Speaker s Chair; behind it three curtains were ablaze
but the fire had not yet rrachrA thg pangTIing. In aAJitinn 3 tfr^ nfait
on either side of the stenographers' places had caught light. And all this
was stated on oath, not by a crystal-gazer, but by Herr Scranowitz,
the tried, tested, and pensionable inspector of the Reichstag, a man
who had gone on his nightly key-rattling rounds of the House, under
the Kaiser, the Republic, and the Third Reich. This good man, who
must consider appearing in court a welcome break in las otherwise
unusually monotonous life, likes to hear the sound of his own
voice. 41

Unfortunately, nobody - not even the fire experts - suspected
that Scranowitz, who, after all, knew the Reichstag better than
anyone else, might have been wrong. Now if the fire had in fact
changed from, a minor into a major conflagration within the one

174

THE POLITICAL CASE

minute that separated Scranowitz's and the police officers' in-
spection of the Chamber, then the flames could not possibly have
spread spontaneously; then accomplices and plotters must indeed
have been at work.

And yet there is no need to dismiss Scranowitz as a deceitful or
extravagant witness, for there is a completely natural explanation
for his mistake: in that 'fraction of a second' during which Scrano-
witz peered into the Chamber, all he did, in fact, see was the
burning curtains - all the other 'flames' were reflections from the
highly polished desks.

The police officers, on the other hand, who watched the fire for a
much longer time, were able to distinguish clearly between the
burning curtains and their flickering reflections.

In short, Scranowitz was sincere but - utterly confused.

Unfortunately the President of the Court chose to ignore this
obvious feet, arid adopted Scranowitz's erroneous story, simply
because it fitted in much better with the accomplice theory.
Scranowitz himself told the Public Prosecutor :

I said one man couldn't possibly have started all the fires by TifmMJf*
no less than six to eight people must have done it. That was my guess
at the time, though I didn't actually see anybody. All I knew was that
one person couldn't possibly have done it all in so short a time.

Luckily for Scranowitz, no one asked him to give any reasons for
these guesses and assumptions. Later, when he realized the truth, he
admitted publicly that van der Lubbe must have been the sole
culprit. Since he is dead, he can no longer speak for himself!

175

Ill

THE TRIAL

ip. The Preliminary Examination.

THE EXAMINING MAGISTRATE

ONCE the police endorsed Hitler's 'inspiration* that the Reichstag
fire was a call to Communist rebellion and hence to high treason,
the case against van der Lubbc and 'accomplices' had to be referred
to the Supreme Court.

One man who did not like these developments was Hermann
GSring. On 2 March 1933, he told the Cabinet:

The police will soon have to hand the case over to the Supreme Court.
The CTaininfng magistrate is Dr Braune, who used to investigate
charges against members of the National Socialist Party, and who has
always been most ruthless with us. Even ifhe did his work objectively,
he would hardly be the right man to handle so important a case. Thus
he might restrict his investigations to die oiminal alone, when afl the
experts agree that six to seven persons, at the very least, must have
been involved. He might even give orders to set Deputy Torgler free.
Any slips now would have extremely grave consequences later.
Hence it is advisable to see if another, more suitable, magistrate could
not be put in charge of the investigation of the Reichstag fire, con-
sidered not as an act of common arson but as one of high treason.

Hitler, too, objected to Dr Braune, so that Under-Secretary

Schlegdberger had to hunt up an CTamiViJTig magistrate more to his
liking. He found him in the person ofjudge Paul Vogt, a man who
responded with such alacrity and who set to work with such zeal
that Torgler, for one, became convinced the Government had
offered him a chance of 'rehabilitating' liimsftl

Vogt, who had investigated many other political cases, had
joined the Supreme Court in 193 1. By all accounts, he was the very
model of a Prussian judge: conservative, correct, unrelenting once
he had arrived at a decision, unwilling to temper justice with
mercy, and self-assured to the point of arrogance. A Swiss corre-
spondent described him as follows: 'His bearing is that of a typical
Prussian reserve officer. His legal knowledge and loyalty are
beyond question.' 1

179

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

For simplicity's sake, Vogt ran the examination from the
Reichstag itself. At his own request, Detective-Inspectors Heisig
and Dr Braschwitz, and Detective-Sergeant Raben were allocated
to him- His legal assistant - also appointed at his own request - was
Dr Wernecke.

When most of the information supplied by willing members of
the public proved completely useless, Vogt asked the entire German
press to publish photographs of Marinus van der Lubbe together
with a reward of 20,000 marks - a tremendous sum at that time -
to anyone offering useful information. Similar photographs were
pasted up on countless hoardings and walls.

The high reward helped to lend wings to the public's sporting
instincts and fantasy. Of the many who came forward, a large
number were eventually unmasked for what they were: petty
crooks and informers out to feather their own nests or to blow
their own trumpets.

But fir-fetched though all their stories were, none of them
produced any further accomplices, so that Judge Vogt felt he must
hang on at any cost to the five suspects he already had.

Because of the official thesis that a Communist rebellion had
been quashed at the last moment, Vogt asked police chiefs through-
out Germany to supply him with information about Com-
munist activities. The results were condensed and included in the
Indictment, from which every unbiased person would have been
forced to conclude that the Communists nad been lying low. Yet
Judge Vogt held fast to his Communist putsch theory, though -
according to Diels - he did realize that, were he to arraign the
leaders of the Communist Party on the basis of the 'documentary
evidence* he had gathered, his whole case might collapse. Hence he
decided to argue that, though there was insufficient direct evidence
to show that there had been a central plan to fire the Reichstag as a
signal for rebellion, the existence of such a plan could nevertheless
be inferred from Communist acts of terror and arson in the past.
When Goring heard of this development, he exploded. The
Fiihrer himselfhad blamed the OrmrmTnigt leaders directly hence
there just had to be an organized plot.

And indeed, at first the whole case had seemed quite cut and dried.
Had a Communist not been caught red-handed? Was it likely that
he had acted alone? "Would not a thorough police investigation and
the offer of a high reward bring the otter culprits to book? And

180

THE TRIAL

could van der Lubbe's accomplices be anything but Communists?
Had not the Communist deputy, Ernst Torgler, been incriminated
by a number of quite independent witnesses? And was there not
weighty evidence against tne three Bulgarian Communists ?

Tnw when Vogt set to work it was quite reasonable to fl$smnc
that the Government thesis of a Communist putsch was the right
one. But by the time he had heard more than five hundred wit-
nesses, and had filled twenty-four volumes with depositions and
documents, he ought to have realized that Goring's first press
communique^ on the night of the fire had been quite wrong. Far
from doing that, Vogt held fast to the spirit, if not to the letter, of
the official thesis, and continues to do so to this day. Still, not even
he could close his ears to the persistent rumours that the Nazis
themselves had fired the Reichstag as an election stunt. Thus, on 3
March 193 3, Walter Lassmann, a merchant from Apolda,
ed the Court to investigate the rumour that the National
t Party had set the Reichstag on fire. He added:

Those arrested so far are said to have been paid by the National
Socialist Party, and to have been instructed to blame the crime on the
Communist Party . . . . Only the National Socialist Party is in favour
of governing without a Parliament and hence without a House. 1

On 2 March 1933, one Baron von der Ropp humbly petitioned
the President of the Supreme Court

... to instruct the Public Prosecutor to put on record the names of
the real incendiaries. At the moment, these men are still employed in
Gdring's Residence, whence they earned the incendiary material into
the underground passage. It would be an irreparable loss if future
German historians were kept in ignorance of me names of the real

While Baron von der Ropp merely repeated a general rumour,
the Communists themselves were careless enough to mention the
actual nATes of th^ alleged Nag? accoirmlices^ When all of these had

supplied Vogt with perfectly good alibis, he quite understandably
concluded that the Communists were merely trying to pass the
buck. That, by the way , was also the view of the Public Prosecutor.
On the other hand, Vogt saw no reason to protest against the
equally nn^iiVtsfq-n^afp^l Nazi rlaim that the Communist Party
was implicated. He accordingly dismissed van der Lubbe's pro-
testations that he had fired the Reichstag by hirngplf as so many

181

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

further Communist lies, all of which -were meant to whitewash the
real culprits. Hence the good magistrate was able to promise Dr
Taubert, an emissary of the anxious Dr Goebbels, that he would
somehow manage to get the Communists convicted.

Although Vogt was obliged to submit regular reports to the
Minister of Justice, there is not the slightest evidence that he was
under any direct political pressure. Vogt was allowed to fill his
twenty-four volumes of records as he chose. Early in June 1933, he
handed them over to the Public Prosecutor's office, whence they
were returned to him briefly for a number of factual emendations.
He completed the work at the end offune 193 3 .

THE NEUKOLLN 'LINK'

As we saw, Vogt shared Dr Zirpins's view that van der Lubbe f s
real principals were the leaders of the Communist Party, and
Torgler and Koenen in particular. However, when he tried to
substantiate this thesis and the Government thesis that the Reichstag
fire had been the signal for a Communist uprising, he came up
against an insurmountable obstacle : how could van der Lubbe, the
unknown Dutch tramp, have got hold of tie leaders of the German
Communist Party within so short a time of his arrival in Berlin?
After all, these leaders were ostensibly planning a major civil war,
and must have been terribly busy. All Vogt could say was that van
der Lubbe must have managed it somehow.

Then, on 6 March 1933, he was apparently proved right when,
duly encouraged by the reward of 20,000 marks, a worker by the
name of Ernst Panknin reported from Neukolln. Panknin claimed
that on the Wednesday before the fire he had seen van der Lubbe in
'conference' with the metalworker Paul Bienge, the labourer Paul
Zachow, and the shoemaker Herbert Lowe - all three men with
known Communist leanings - outside the Neukollb. Welfare
Office.

The Indictment devoted fifteen long pages to this inference',
which was to have such tragic consequences: the three men were
arrested, threatened, and subjected to torture when they refused to
confess something of which they were completely innocent.

According to Panknin, this is what had happened :

Zachow began by complaining very bitterly that a horde of
Storm Troopers had torn off 'Iron Front' badges from Socialist
182

THE TRIAL

passers-by in the Sonnenallee. He, Zachow, had been forced to
restrain his friend Bienge since otherwise there would have been a
fight. Bienge then said:

*If all of us were like you, we shouldn't ever amount to any-
thing/

Marinus van der Lubbe, who was listening to all this, then asked
the way to the Sonnenallee; he wanted to go thereat once, and was
very disappointed when he learned that the whole story had
happened the day before. Van der Lubbe was very excited and
said that the workers ought to be encouraged to hit back, and to
start a revolution after the great Russian model; it was now or
never. Zachow, for his part, suggested that the best way of shaking
up the people and of inciting them to revolution was firing public
buildings. To which Bienge had added: 'Well, let's start with the
Reichstag and the Palace. For either we come to power and we
shan't need the Reichstag, or eke the others will come to power and
won't let us in anyway. 4

Bienge went on to say that special groups would have to be
formed, whose job it would be to calm single Storm Troopers,
pour petrol over them, and then set fire to them.

Zachow argued in favour of burning 'the lot', and not just in-
dividual buildings. When Marinus van der Lubbe agreed with all
their plans, Bienge gave Zachow a dig in *K^ ribs and said :

'This lad is all right; we can use Kim/

At that point, Marinus van der Lubbe confessed that he was an
experienced and active Communist and pulled a red booklet out
Kis pocket. This, according to Panknin, had to be a Communist
Party membership card because it was red. Then van der Lubbe
asked to be directed to Communist Party headquarters.

On 30 March 1933, when Panknin was confronted with van der
Lubbe, he repeated the whole story, adding :

When the conversation was over, I mean their discussion about
setting public buildings on fire, van der Lubbe asked if he could join
in, and all the others agreed readily. 5

With that the fate of the three men from Neukolln was sealed, and
it did not help van der Lubbe to protest :

I can only repeat again and again that I heard no conversation whatso-
ever on die subject of burning public buildings. When I first decided
to set public buildings on fire, I was thinking of the Ncuk6lln Welfare

183

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Office b ecausc it seemed the best place to me. If I am told it is unlikely
tliat my actions should accidentally have agreed with what was
allegedly discussed outside the Welfare Office, I can only reply that
it was, in feet, a sheer coincidence. And if I am further alleged to have
asked for the address of Communist Party headquarters, all I can say
is that I did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, I insisted that the
Communist Party was using the wrong lrin<1 of tactics. True, I asked
whether the Communist Party was still active in Neukdlln, and was
told that it was very difficult to do anything at all these days. 6

Of course, van der Lubbe's words went unheard. The Neukolln
link, or rather the Neukolln fantasy, was something to which
Juge Vogt had to ding Vk* a leech, for that fantasy was the corner-
stone or the Communist conspiracy theory, and hence of the
whole trial. Thus when the President of the Court, Dr Bunger,
asked Vogt later whether van der Lubbe had admitted inciting the
others to arson, the following dialogue ensued:

Vogt: 'Yes, I believe he did at the beginning . . . no, to the best of
my knowledge he denied it.'

President: He has kept repeating: "I did not say it; I merely heard
it." '

Vogt: 'I believe the records will show the contrary. I think he
merely denied that he himself was the one to say that public buildings
must be burned. I seem to remember that it was Bienge who said
that.'

President: 'Did you say that he admitted having asked the way to
Communist Party headquarters?*

Vogt: 'Oddly enough, he denied everything that might constitute
a link with Party headquarters. He was amid of admitting that link.' 7

The witness Ernst Panknin still dreams of the 20,000 marks
which, despite his efforts, slipped through his fingers. The fete of
his poor victims -was less happy: Paul Zachow died soon afterwards
from the treatment his captors meted out to him; Paul Bienge had
all his teeth broken and was beaten mercilessly to confirm the fable
of the Neukolln link - but in vain. The shoemaker Herbert Loewe,
too, was 'imprisoned' for a whole year without obliging his tor-
mentors with a confession. Bienge and Loewe are still alive.

Nor was Panknin the only pretender to the reward of 20,000
marks: a second claimant of the same sort appeared on the scene
soon afterwards, and actually provided the grateful Judge Vogt

184

THE TRIAL

'direct evidence' against the Communist Party leaders. The name
of that witness was Willi Hintze.

During those sad February days which Marinus van der Lubbe
had spent in Neukolln, an unemployed man, Kkowsky by name,
decided to put an end to the miserable life he had been forced to live.

When fikowsky's sobbing widow was taken to SchlafEke's, a
near-by bar, by her brother, Willi Hintze, she sobbed out that her
husband had committed suicide because he could no longer bear to
look on while his family starved. Thereupon Walter Jahnecke, a
member of the Unemployeds' Executive, suggested a demon-
stration against the Welfare Office. Hintze went one step further
and called: for an armed attack, offering tmpply the requisite arms
Viinwlf. At first, everyone was enthusiastic, but soon Jannecke and
the rest of the unemployed grew suspicious. All of them knew that
Hintze had been to prison, not for his political work, but because he
was a member of a notorious gang ofcriminals. He was also said to
be a police informer. In any case, instead of an armed attack on the
Welfare Office there was a police raid on Schlaffke's. Jahnecke and
some other 'ringleaders' were arrested- very luckily lor them, as it
later turned out, for otherwise they would most certainly have
been implicated in the Reichstag fire.

The Director of the Welfare Office, Stadinspektor Frank, told
the Supreme Court on 28 September 193 3 , that Hintze had warned

an impending attack. He had immediately notified the
police who, on Friday morning, sent him an officer and eight
constables to guard the Welfare Office. At about 10 a.m., the police
raided Schlaffke's, but found no arms simply because Hintze ^ad
not brought any along.

Judge Vogt swallowed the whole story hook, line and sinker,
particularly when Hintze, or 'Swindle-Hintze' as he was generally
called, told hi'tn that the details of the attack on the Welfare Office
had been planned by Communist Party headquarters in Neukolln,
that he had seen van der Lubbe in SchlafEke's back room, and that
Torgler's name had been mentioned in connection with die
planned attack on the Welfare Office.

At the trial, it was this last, quite gratuitous, embellishment,
which brought Torgler's counsel, Dr Sack, to the fore - much to
Hintze's discomfiture. Referring to Hintze's many previous con-
victions, his well-deserved nickname, and the rest ot the evidence,
Dr Sack argued that it had been Hintze himself who had hatched

185

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

out the whole plan of attacking the Welfare Office. Hintze tried to
deny everything at first but in the end he confessed that he 'had
pkyed along with the police'. A newspaper report on Hintze's
court performance concluded with the observation : "The character
of this witness is such that even the Public Prosecutor ignored his
evidence against Torgler/ 8

VAN DER LUBBE'S 'UNTRUSTWORTHINESS'

One of the experts whom Judge Vogt consulted about the fire
-was the proud owner of the Halle 'Private Institute for Scientific
Criminology 1 , Dr Wilhelm Schatz. At the time, Dr Schatz was as
little known to the public as he was to big fellow-scientists.

At the end of May 1933, the experts performed a series of tests on
the curtains, tablecloths, and towels which van der Lubbe had used
as additional firelighters. This is what they found:

The restaurant door-curtains burned with astonishing speed.
Time: about thirty seconds.
The restaurant tablecloth burned quickly.
Time: fifty-five seconds.
The towel lit with a firelighter burned quickly.
Then came the first surprise:

A piece of the curtain from the western corridor did not catch fire
even when it was held in the flame of a firelighter for five minutes. 9

This bit of curtain was immediately turned into a prize exhibit
for, if the experts were right, van der Lubbe could only have set
fire to it if it had been 'prepared* well in advance. It followed that
the curtain had been '. . . soaked in a ... petroleum derivate,
Le. benzine or gasoline.' 10

To what extent Judge Vogt allowed himself to be blinded by
science, and how badly he misjudged poor van, der Lubbe as a
result, can be seen from his own evidence to die Supreme Court on
27 September 1933 when he testified:

Finally, van der Lubbe was greatly embarrassed when I put it to him
that we had tried in vain - the experts will describe all the details - to
light the curtain over the exit to the western corridor with a fire-
lighter. . ..I told him: *Marinus van der Lubbe, there can no longer

you nave not spoken the truth.' He replied: 'Well, the experts ran
say what they like, but I know that it caught fire all the same.' Then

186

THE TRIAL

I pointed to the curtain once again and said to him: 'You can see for
yourself if it can't even be lit with a firelighter, then you could not
possibly have lit it by brushing against it with bits of material,' Then
he thought hard and said: 'Yes, perhaps it wasn't me after all!' I
persisted: 'But how did the curtain eaten fire in that case? Then he

shrugged his shoulders and said: 'Well, perhaps I tried to burn it

A . rii *

I could get absolutely nothing definite out of him, and I became
convinced that the more I drove it home to him
not tally with those of the experts, the more determined he became to
say nothing further, 11

With the last sentence* the ingenuous judge had hit the nail
squarely on the head, for van der Lubbe, who had kept repeating
the simple truth, gave up in despair when he realized that Judge
Vogt was far less interested in the facts than in his own pet theory.

In fact, Vogt believed that van der Lubbe lied *at every oppor-
tunity*:

Whenever it was a question of determining whether others had helped

invariably told deliberate lies. Only when it ram^ to explain-
ing thathe-Lubbe- was the big hero who had started the fires all by
did he speak quite openly. 12

Here we can see by what criterion Vogt judged van der Lubbe's
trustworthiness : everything that did not fit in with the official views
was dismissed as a lie. Since Marinus van der Lubbe knew perfectly
well that he had set fire to the curtain, no amount of expert evidence
could convince him of the contrary. All the experts did manage to
do was to make him feel confused

In contradistinction to Judge Vogt, Detective-Inspector Heisig
told the Supreme Court that van der Lubbe had always struck the
police as a reasonable man :

It was quite remarkable how much interest he showed in the investi-
gation, and how he tried to explain every last detail. When he was
asked to sign the statement we had taken from him., he insisted on
tnaln'ng a number of corrections, and explained at length why he
preferred particular turns of phrase.

And Heisig, who was only too familiar with Vogt's fatal bias,
added: 'He remained interested for as long as he stayed with the
police.'

Heisig also insisted that van der Lubbe's description of the path he

187

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

had taken through the Reichstag had never changed, while Judge
Vogt told the Supreme Court that van der Lubbe had made a
number of contradictory statements about his movements. For
once, the Supreme Court refused to listen to Vogt, finding instead
that there was

... no doubt that the accused took the path he described in the
preliminary examination and which he was asked to retrace on a
number of occasions during the trial. It would have been impossible
for a man whose eyesight is as poor as van der Lubbe's to describe
tiny* and again the complicated trail he followed on the night of the
fire, had he invented the whole story. .

On the essential points, however, the Supreme Court agreed
with Vogt rather than with Heisig. Thus, when van der Lubbe
shook off his 'torpor' on 23 November 193 3 , to repeat that he had
used his jacket to set fire to the curtains in the Session Chamber, the
President reproached him, saying :

'All that is quite untrue, for the experts tell us that the curtain could
not have been set on fire that way.

Van der Lubbe: 'But it did catch fire I 9

President: The Court does not believe you. The fire could not
possibly have started in the way you have described.' 18

The same attitude was also reflected in the Court's verdict :

The Court holds that the curtains were not set on fire by van der
Lubbe, the more so because his vagueness on that point is in marked
contrast to his lucid and uniform description ot the pjith he took
through, the Reichstag. At the preliminary examination he explained
that he did not know whether, or precisely when, he had set fire to
these curtains.

And yet van der Lubbe had spoken the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. Unfortunately for him, the Supreme
Court chose to listen instead to the director of the 'Private Institute
for Scientific Criminology'.

There -were many other reasons why Vogt doubted van der
Lubbe's truthfulness. First of all, van der Lubbe had been a Com-
munist, and Communism was anathema to the Judge. Then van der
Lubbe seemed to be a shiftless vagabond, one who preferred
cadging his way through Europe to a respectable existence in his

188

THE TRIAL

native Holland. Third, the Bulgarians' and Torgler's insistence that
they had never met van der Lubbe was most suspicious, when so
many witnesses had come forward to assert the contrary.

Vogt had strong private reasons for hating all Communists, for in
1928 an attractive Communist woman, Olga Benario, had per-
suaded him to send for her alleged fiancl, Otto Braun - whose real
name was Karl Wagner and who was a leading Communist con-
spirator - in Moabit prison. While the two 'lovers* were reunited
vrnrW Vogt's watchful eyes, a band of Communists carried Wagner
off by force. There was a tremendous scandal, and poor Vogt was
made to look an absolute fool. 14

He must have been thinking of this when, on 27 September 193 3 ,
he told the Supreme Court: 1 believe I have some experience in
interrogating and dealing with Communists.'

"What TTi a <fc things particularly difficult for Vogt now was that
thft five Communist 'incendiaries' "were so completely unlike one
another. For one, there was van der Lubbe, who had been caught
red-handed, and who confessed his crime quite freely; then there
were the three Bulgarians who travelled with false papers and who
thought it their duty to deceive the 'Fascist' police; and finally
there was Torgler who could so easily have been mistaken for a
gentleman. All Vogt knew was that hie must not allow himself to
be taken in by any of them.

He never guessed how little Dimitrov thought of him from the
very start - as early as 3 April 1933, the Bulgarian scribbled the
following entry in his diary : 'Vogt small stature Jesuitical. Good
for petty crimes. Too small for historical trial, for world publicity.
Petty; an idiot.' And Dimitrov added an observation which most
observers of the trial came to share: 'Had he had even a modicum
of intelligence, he would have fought tooth and nail to keep me
out of the courtroom.' 15

THE ACCUSED IN CHAINS

On tli ft very first day of the preliminary examination, Judge Vogt
ordered the accused to be put in rnaing. Torgler and t"e Bulgarians
had to endure this torture for five long months, until 31 August
1933 ; van der Lubbe Was forced to drag his chains into the court-
room as late as 25 September.

Dimitrov later described 4 . . . the agony of their fetters, the un-
bearable pain caused by the gashes on their ankles and wrists where

189

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

the chains cut into them; the sleepless nights which they passed.
What Vogt's intentions were in this respect passes almost beyond
conjecture/ 16

Torgler raised a similar outcry: *It was left to the warders'
discretion either to tighten our chains until the blood circulation
was gravely impeded, and the skin broke, or else to take pity on us
and to loosen the chains by one notch.' 17

To make things worse, the summer of 1933 was exceptionally
hot, so that the poor wretches had to drag their chains in an un-
bearably stifling atmosphere.

Vogt later told the Supreme Court that he had ordered fetters *in
accordance with the regulations'. He added:

When he [van der Lubbe] complained about the chains I told him -
and, by the way, the other accused as well - that much as I regretted
this step . . . I had to act in accordance with the regulations. I suggested
that he petition the Supreme Court.

As Dimitrov was quick to point out, Vogt's 'regulations'
(Article 116, Section 4 of the Criminal Procedure Code Act) had
nothing to do with the case, for:

The Criminal Procedure Code prescribes circumstances in 'which
accused persons may be put in fetters. This course should be taken
only when they are specially dangerous to other persons or "when they
have attempted or have prepared to attempt suicide or escape.

In his testimony to the Supreme Court, Vogt claimed that he had
told Dimitrov's counsel, Dr Werner Wille:

I cannot help myself ; it is my bounden duty to put them in rhfljng but
I have no objection to your petitioning the Supreme Court, thus
releasing me from a grave responsibility.

When the Presiding Judge asked why no such petition had been
lodged, Vogt replied :

*Wasn't it? I really do not know. Wille told me that he fully appre-
ciated the necessity of the step I had ta1ewi t and that he personally
would never even dream of petitioning the Supreme Court,'

Whereupon the Presiding Judge said quite pointedly:

'In this connection, I should like to have it established that thr
were subsequently removed on the instructions of this Court.

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THE TRIAL

In short, Vogt's so-called 'regulations' should never have been
applied.

What the Presiding Judge did not point out was that it had been
Vogt's moral, if not his formal, duty to submit all petitions to the
Supreme Court personally. In other words, there was no need to
wait for DrWille to 'release him from this grave responsibility*. In
fact, when the Supreme Court first heard about the chains fromDr
Sack, the learned Judges not only ordered the chains to be removed
forthwith, but instructed Judge Vogt to submit a written ex-
planation of the reasons which had prompted him to take this
unusual step. Vogt's answer, dated 18 August 1933, betrays his bias
and his bad conscience: to him all the accused were dangerous
criminals even before they were convicted, and had to be treated as
such. In addition, van der Lubbe had attacked an official, Tanev
had attempted suicide, and Dimitrov had once come towards him

At the time, it was suggested that Vogt had been given orders
to chain the prisoners lest they commit suicide in prison. (In
fact, Tanev tried to kill himself precisely because of the fetters.) Tne
Manchester Guardian had warned that any such suicide would be
looked upon as deliberate murder and an admission of Nazi guilt
in the Reichstag fire.

But when Paul Vogt was asked in January 1957 whether he had,
in feet, been ordered to put the prisoners in fetters, he insisted that
he had not. In fact, he could remember nothing about the whole
episode. This gap in his memory is most surprising, for Dimitrov
\\*{\ rr\*e\p> a great point of taunting liim with n\& chains.

In particular he ought to have remembered the following rlagK in
Court:

Prggulffnt (tn T)itriitTQv) ; 'This is not the pla/^ to flggme the P.Yamitiing
Magistrate. This is no Court of Appeal, Dimitrov. 9

IMmitxov: 'Of course not.. ..But isn't it true that I lodged at least
ten oral and written protests, and that I asked to have the chains
removed in accordance with the Criminal Code. Is that true or not?'

Vogt: 'Yes.'

Dimitrov: 'Were all these protests and requests summarily dis-
missed, without my receiving any explanation or reason? 9

President: 'Did you cramine his requests?'

Vogt: 'No. No written request was ever submitted to me/

Dimitrov : 'I sent you three !'

191

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Vogt: 'Just one minute! Quite possibly he did. He certainly kept
referring to the matter, for at almost every interrogation Herr
Dimitrov asked me to remove his shackles. It is also quite possible -
I am ready to concede that - that he put it in a letter. I can t possibly
remember any more/

Vogt, who considered every lapse of memory on the part of the
accused an admission of their guilt and dishonesty, quite obviously
applied different standards of probity to himself.

'I AM A GERMAN JUDGE AND MY
NAME IS VOGT'

The trial brought to light many of Judge Vogt's other exceed-
TncHy strancre methods*

The reader will remember that the three Bulgarians were
arrested and brought to trial on information lodged by the waiter,
Johann Hclmer. His evidence was one long fiasco tor frb^

Magistrate and the prosecution; Hclmer proved only one thing -
his absolute untrustworthiness. Or as Counsel for the Bulgarians,
DrTeichert,putit:

Hdmer's testimony is highly improbable. If we are to believe him,
the Bulgarians met van der Lubbe in theBayernhof at least four to six
times from the summer to the winter of 1932. . . . They engaged in
mysterious conversations and carried suspicious pamphlets on their
persons. The dear implication of his evidence was that they and van
der Lubbe were plotting an attack on the Reichstag, and perhaps other
rrimftg as welL Now, the Reichstag did, in fact, go up in flam** and
Lubbe was caught. His picture was published in all the newspapers
and pasted up on advertising pillars. In addition, a high reward -was
offered for further information. I ask the Court, does it seem likely
after all this had happened, the Bulgarians would have gone

back to the very place where they had formerly hatched their plots
with a man who had meanwhile been arrested?

Torgler's Counsel added:

I should like to draw attention to some other blunders which have
been allowed to come up during the trial; blunders which hinge on the
allegation that the accused van der Lubbe was seen in the Bayernho
One witness, Helmer, was suddenly turned into a star witness for the
prosecution. And -why? Simply because no one bothered to ask what
sort of place the Bayenihot really was, and how van der Lubbe was
dressed at the time he was supposed to have been in the place. Had I

192

THE TRIAL

been asked to investigate the crime, I should surely have said: I do
not know what sort of place the B ayernhof is, so I shall go and have a
look. I shall find out whether they have a doorkeeper who bars
shabbily-dressed customers. Only then will I be able to tell whether
the accused van der Lubbe could have met Dimitrov and the others
in that place.

And yet it was left until the trial for this point to be cleared up. 18
Dr Teichert then pointed out that inquiries in Holland had
shown beyond a shadow of doubt that van der Lubbe could not
have been in Berlin at the times mentioned by Helmer. This fact,
too, ought to have been established, not at the trial, but during the
preliminary examination.

Though Dr Teichert generally left all the talking to Dimitrov,
he simply could not contain himself when, on 7 November, Helmer
came out with the further fable that he had seen the three Bulgarians
with van der Lubbe on the day before the fire:

This is so improbable an allegation that I can only express my regret
that the "Ry^-mining Magistrate should have followed. thi& witness
who, I am convinced, is absolutely mistaken, on to a path that has
proved so disastrous for the German people.

When the Public Prosecutor objected to this remark, Dr
Teichert explained that it was his acceptance of Helmer's evidence
which had made Judge Vogt, and hence German justice, an easy
target for attacks from abroad. The acquittal of all three Bulgarians
fully proved the justice of Dr Teichert's remark.

During the trial, it also came out that, although the three accused
had repeatedly insisted on their right to be confronted with
witnesses, Judge Vogt had just as insistently refused them. Hence
the Brown Book was able to say:

Vogt declined to accede to the requests ofDimitrov, Popov and Tanev
to be confronted with van der Lubbe. Popov and Tanev had stated,
quite independently of each other, that at about 9 p.m. on the evening
of February ayth they were in die UFA pavilion in the Nollen-
dorfer Platz seeing a n\m. Popov stated that he had left his gloves
behind, had gone back later to look for them and had searched with
the help of an attendant. His request to be confronted with the
attendant Vogt refused. Popov and Tanev gave detailed accounts of
their movements on February 27th. They asked to be confronted
with the waiters at the Ascmnger Restaurant in the Bfllowstrassc
where they had Dinner that evening. Vogt declined to do this. He

193

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

failed, to confront Torgler with Karwahne, the most serious of the
witnesses against him. Had this been done, Torgler would have been
able at an early stage to demonstrate the falsity of Karwahne's state-
ments. By refusing to hold any of these confrontations, Vogt deliber-
ately deprived the accused men of the benefit of their legal rights. 19

And Dr Sack added in his final address :

The TfrgaminiTig Magistrate, having first shown the "witness photo-
graphs, orderecTa confrontation, but not with the witness Karwahne,
because in the Magistrate's opinion Karwahne knew the accused
Torgjler extremely welL I, however, as Counsel for the Defence, take
the view that it was quite irrelevant whether or not Karwahne was
with the accused Torgler. It was the Examining
to confront the two with each, other.

By contrast, Vogt allowed repeated confrontations between the
witness Bogun ana Popov, during each of which Bogun 'remem-
bered' fresh details. Apparently Vogt made a dear distinction
between the needs of die prosecution and the defence, so much so
that Popov was forced to complain:

The P.-gamiTtiTig Magistrate refused to confront me with the waiters
at the [ Aschinger] restaurant. "When I repeated my request, he merely
told me that Tanev had already admitted he had been there witn
me. 20

Dr Sack rightly objected to Vogt's bluffing the witnesses with
the story that their alleged accomplices had already confessed.
When he cross-examined Vogt on that point, the Magistrate was
stung into quick fury and betrayed a highly exaggerated sense ofhis
own importance:

Dr Sack: 'Did you ever try, by alleging that Torgler had already
confessed, to get the other accused to admit that Torgler was an
accomplice in burning the Reichstag?*

Vogt: *I should have hoped . . .'

Dr Sack: 1 am in duty bound to put that question to you. . . /

Vogt: *. . . that I would have been spared mat question. For first,
as I have already said, I am a German judge and second my natr^ is
Vogt.'

Sack: 'Might I then ask you another question? The man who ma/U
the allegation [that Vogt had bluffed the witnesses] is also a German
lawyer. "Why did he accuse you?*

Vogt: *I do not know. But since you insist, and so as to avoid any
misunderstanding, I hereby declare most emphatically that nowhere

194

THE TRIAL

and at no time did I ever do anything incompatible with the honour
of a German judge.' 21

TheBrtni^BoofeadxledthefoUowinglaconiccoinnient: * "First, I
am a German judge; second my name is Vogt!" This is perhaps
unique amongst Vogt's statements in that it cannot be con-
tradicted.' 22

The Brown Book also took up a number of other complaints by
the defence. For instance, it stressed the importance of a list of
Torgler's appointments, which had been found in the office of the
Communist Party Parliamentary Group, and which Vogt claimed
had 'disappeared'. This list, the defence had argued, was important
evidence for Torgler's innocence: *A man intending to burn the
Reichstag so as to bring about a political upheaval would hardly go
to the trouble of working out a complete list of ordinary engage-
ments to follow the deed.' 23

This is what Dr Sack had had to say on this subject:

"There is one thing that has made me sit up and tfiinV. I submit, Your
Honours, that I, as Torgler's counsel, should have been in no position
to adduce proof of Torgler's plans on and after February 27th, 1933,
had I not hunted through the Court's dossiers. Is it counsel's job to go
to such lengths, to say "I would rather see for myself" wnen he is
told a document is missing? I ask you, Your Honours, what would
have happened, had I been unable to find this list and to place it before
you? Your Honours, I could mention many further oddities of *V$
kind.' 2 *

In view of the importance of the preliminary investigation and
the keen interest the world press took in it, Judge Vogt saw fit to
publish communiques from timp to time. Some of his press hand-
outs proved rather premature - to put it very mildly. A typical
example was the following, which appeared thirteen days after the
Bulgarians were taken into custody :

The investigations so ^ r have shown that the Dutch Communist
incendiary who was arrested in the Reichstag at the rime of the fire
has been in touch not only with German Communists but also with
foreign Communists, frirKijfog some 'who have been condemned to
death or to long terms of penal servitude in connection with the
blowing up of Sofia cathedral in 1925. The men in question have been

What had happened was that Dr Ernst Droscher, a Nazi press

195

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

officer, had 'identified* Dimitrov as the man who blew up the
cathedral, and that Judge Vogt had not bothered to ask any
questions. In fact, as DrTeichert later found out from, the German
Legation in Sofia, the cathedral was blown up by one Stefan
Dimitrov Todorov, a man who had no connection with, or any
resemblance to, Georgi Dimitrov.

On 27 September 1933, when - very angrily - Dimitrov asked
Vogt whether or not he had issued a press statement on i April, Le.
before t^g start of the preliminary investigation, to tVi^ effect that
Dimitrov, Popov ana Tanev had been in touch with van der
Lubbe, Vogt was so taken aback that he stammered out the
completely irrelevant, though highly revealing, answer :

this information "was apparently incorrect. He ViimgXlf^ however, is
responsible for the error, since he failed, to correct me when I con-
nected thft mnmnffn/wn^nt of the Bulgarian insurrection in 1923 [in
-which Georgi Dimitrov had participated] with the outrage in Sofia
Cathedral which JJJ not, in fact, take place until 1925.

This odd claim on the part of a judge that the accused is to blame
for the Court's blunders, is all the more incomprehensible because
Vogt went on to admit that Dimitrov had, in fact, tried to put him
right. But then Judge Vogt was singularly deaf when it came to any
protests on the part of the accused, no matter whether their
protests were concerned with points of fact or with the wearing of

In any case, Dimitrov' s original question, which had so flustered
Judge Vogt, had been about the Bulgarians' alleged meetings with
van der Lubbe and not about his own part in the Sofia bombing.
However, before Dimitrov had rime to point that out, Vogt had
gone on to make an even greater fool ofhimself. Having just agreed
thatDiniitrovdidnottakepartintiiebonibing,henowwentonto
say: 'The accused Dimitrov was involved in the blowing up of
Sofia Cathedral. Yes ! Mr Dimitrov, we are a little confused. But
you wait a while for there will be a witness who will swear that you
n*A a part in that affair.'

(Vogt's witness was Dr Droscher, who contradicted himself so
much and so often that the Court had to dismiss his evidence.)

THE TRIAL

When Dimitrov finally managed to get a word in edgeways, he
began very quietly:

1 did not ask about the Sofia cathedral, but I did ask, and I ask again
about our alleged association with van der Lubbe. I shall prove that
Judge Vogt has conducted the judicial investigation in a biased
piatingr, and that he b?g deliberately misled public opinion.'

President: 'Hold your tongue! I cannot permit you to conduct
your defence in this disgraceful manner J*

When Dimitrov thereupon pulled Vogt's 'premature* press
release out of his pocket and passed it across to the President, 26 the
President was forced to ask:

1 take it, this is the report which the P/mnintng Magistrate issued at
the time, and on which he has already testifiedr

Vogt: *Yes. That is quite correct. Not only did I have the right to
issue this statement, but the statement was proved right by the subse-
quent investigation. After all, we only caught the three Bulgarians
because we could prove they had been in touch with van der Lubbe.
Otherwise we should never have been able to arrest them.'

During the trial, DJ- Sack asked Vogt:

*What were you trying to establish when you interrogated van der
Lubbe? Did you think he was the sole culprit? Or did you think he
must have had other accomplices? 9

Vogt: 1 never come to a case with preconceived ideas. I thought I
have made that perfectly clear/

Dr Sack returned to the problem of Judge Vogt in his final
address:

'Even magistrates are in danger ofbccoming confused . . . particularly
those who never have *V^ slightest doubt that they are in the right.*

The very same judge who would not forgive the accused their
most trivial lapses, himself perpetrated a number of terrible
blunders. Torgler inferredfrom Vogt's great zeal that he was trying
to ingratiate himself w**h the new masters. Heisig gained much the
same impression, for, as he told von Papen during their common
internment in Rcgensburg:

Those chiefly responsible for trying to turn this criminal offence into a
political one were Goring and Goebbels. They found a useful ally in

197

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Judge Vogt, whose chief purpose was to gain a position of influence
in the National Socialist Party. 27

Heisig was probably too hard on Vogt. True, Vogt had no sym-
pathy for Socialists and Liberals, let alone for Communists, but he
was not so much corrupt, as misguided in thinking that the Nazis
were serving his country's best interests. This is borne out by his
subsequent career. In June 1937, Vogt was appointed President of
the Second Criminal Court of Appeal. Seven years later he was
summoned to Berlin and censured for political misconduct. When
he refused to go into voluntary retirement, he was forcibly placed
on the retirement list.

Vogt's 'crimes' were that he had given a clergyman, Drjannasch,
leave to appeal against a sentence of two months' imprisonment for
'misuse of the pulpit' (the clergyman had prayed for Dr Niemoller),
and that he had anowed the appeal of a German Nationalist leader,
Joachim von Rohr-Demmin, against a sentence of eight months'
imprisonment. Von Rohr-Demmin's mi arlgyn payioyir had been
very grave indeed: he had refused to throw two dead Russian
prisoners into a pit and had given them a decent funeraL

Six months later, the Americans marched into Leipzig. After
weeks of contradictory rumours, they finally withdrew and left
Saxony and Thuringia to the Russians. Within days, a Russian
commission called on the Supreme Court and took the fifty-two
volumes constituting the records of the preliminary examination.
One day later, on a Sunday, the Commission called on Judge Paul
Vogt and questioned him very politely about the triaL

Vogt was arrested a short while later and taken to Dresden
together with Judges Brandis, Wernecke and Frolich. Wernecke
had been Vogt s assistant during the preliminary investigation and
Frolich an Assistant Judge at the trial itself.

When the arrested men were told that their help was needed at
the Nuremberg Tribunal, to discover the real culprits of the
Reichstag fire, they recommended that the records be consulted,
and that all those witnesses at the trial who were still alive be re-
examined.

The Russian legal experts immediately took up this suggestion,
only to return empty-handed: none ot the witnesses they could
discover was able or willing to change his original testimony, none
had apparently given his evidence under Nazi pressure.

198

THE TRIAL

Now Vogt -was asked to write a 'Memorandum on the Reichstag
Hre*, and he submitted a thirty-two-page summary of everything
lie could remember. Naturally, he produced no fresh evidence
inculpating the Nazis.

This caused the Russians so much embarrassment that they pro-
posed a face-saver: they asked the former judges to write an
affidavit to the effect that, although the Nazis could not be directly
incriminated, their other outrages made their complicity seem
highly probable. Thejudgcs merely shrugged this suggestion off.
Nor could they satisfy the Russians that they had really told all
they knew. Time and again they referred their captors to die
records, and though Russian legal experts must have gone through
these with more than one fine-tooth comb, they were quite unable
to pin anything fresh on the Nazis. No wonder then that no Third
Brown Book has ever been published in Moscow or East Berlin.

The treatment of the arrested judges had been scrupulously
correct, indeed polite and friendly, and their quarters and their
food had been unexceptionable. AH that was charigrH the moment
the Russians realized that the judges could not or would not help
them. Vogt, Wernecke, and FrSlich "were sent to internment camps
in August 1945. Their treatment there would require a book in
itself; suffice it to say that Dr Walter Frolich, whose bearing during
the Reichstag fire trial had attracted a great deal of favourable
attention abroad, died within a few months of his arrest. Judge
Wernecke died of malnutrition in a hospital in 1946.

Paul Vogt, who was sent from camp to camp, remained un-
broken, taciturn and unrepentant. To frm* day he is convinced that
the Communists set the Reichstag on fire. For the rest he wants to
be left alone.

Still the old gentleman, who now lives in West Germany, cannot
really object when people criticize the part he played in the Reich-
stag fire trial. He, who drove innocent men to the depth of
despair, who shackled prisoners without justification, and blustered
"his -way through the trial, must not complain if he himself is now
put in the dock by historians and found wanting.

TORGLER'S COUNSEL

Many people have wondered how it came about that Ernst
Torgler, the Communist Deputy, was defended by an avowed
National Socialist.

199

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

In early June 1933, after the preliminary examination, Judge
Vogt told Torgler to obtain the services of a barrister. Dr Kurt
Rosenfdd, who had been Torgler's lawyer for many years, and
who had even accompanied him to police headquarters on the day
after the fire, had decided to leave Germany, and such well-known
advocates as Dr Puppe, Walter Bahn, and Count Pestalozza
politely declined the brief. Torgler's wife ran from lawyer to
lawyer, and finally discovered one whose courage had not entirely
evaporated. He was Dr H. R. Habicht of Berlin, and he wanted to
be paid handsomely : from a letter reproduced in the Broum Book it
appears that he asked Prau Torgler (who was completely destitute)
for an initial fee of fifteen thousand mart* with an additional
thousand marks a day if the trial lasted for more than ten days. Need-
less to say, that demand was as good as a refusal.

August was drawing near, and Torgler was still without a
lawyer. At this point the Supreme Court stepped in and nominated
a Dr Hubcr as his official counsel. Weeks later, a terrified old
gentleman appeared in Torgler's cell and complained bitterly about
his brie In his opinion, things looked very black - at best Torgler
would get a life sentence. No wonder that Torgler

. ..thanked him for his reassuring opinion and thought that, in these
circumstances, I would rather do without his help. Rescue came a few
days later, in the uniform of a prison -warder :

Do you know Dr Sack? 9 he asked me rather unexpectedly.

And then he told me that Sack was a well-known member of the
criminal bar who had got 'quite a few people off in his tune'. He
advised me to fill in a printed card, and gave me Sack's address. 28

On hearing Dr Sack's name, Torgler was vaguely reminded of
'patriotic' and other Nazi murder trials, but what choice did he
have in the matter? He filled in the card and sent it off. As Dr Sack
explained later, he was completely taken aback when he received it :

Knowing that die new laws forced Torgler to brief a Nationally-
minded layer, I was concerned with only one question: is the man
guilty or is he innocent? Only if I could be reasonably certain that
Torgler had entered politics for i^raliyric reasons and not for selfish
motives and that he had never made personal capital out of his
political beliefs, would I find it within me to accept his defence. When
my partner, Pelckmann, returned from his visit to Torgler, all he said
was: "You will have to go to him!' 29

200

THE TRIAL

At the end of August, Dr Sack moved to Leipzig with eight
juniors and began to plough through the thirty-two volumes of
depositions. He also took tne earliest opportunity to demand that
Torgler's chains be removed. As a result, die Court ordered tie
rrngViarlcling of all the accused -except van der Lubbe.

Having once undertaken to stand by Torgler, Dr Sack kept faith
with him through thick and thin. Not only did he stand up to the
Public Prosecutor, but he mercilessly attacked National Socialist
witnesses, no matter how prominent, once his client's interests
were at stake. Thus he could say with perfect honesty :

Thank God that all these underhand activities did not succeed in
sowing mistrust between the Communist Torgler and myself his
National Socialist counsel All they did do was to bring me closer to
the accused. . . . And this trial has proved me right: I have gained the
firm conviction that Torgler always told me the truth.

These brave words nearly cost Dr Sack his life :

Dr Sack was unable to shake off the odium of having appeared for
Torgler, and after the great purge of June soth, 1934, he was kept
behind bars for some considerable time, ostensibly so that he could
'adjust* his views. 80

Dr Sack's dignified and noble bearing in Court was praised by all
objective reporters. Douglas Reed, for instance, wrote :

It was no enviable task that Dr Sack undertook, and his acceptance of
it- at a fee which learned counsel, accustomed to enormous retainers
atyl to subsequent payments not rare but eminently refreshing, would
have regarded, with, the same feelings as a Savoy waiter a tip of two-
pence - did him great credit. He was reproached from the bench with
n the trustworthiness of official National Socialist wit-

nesses he was reproached in the press with the vigour of his final
speech in Torgler s defence : and he was vilified abroad for his lack of
arriuii y in that sam^ cause. Actually, he did all he could for his client. 8l

In his "a1 speech, the courage of which was greatly praised by
the Neue Ztircher Zeitung 9 Dr Sack exposed the lies that had
been told by witnesses to whom common sense, logic, and
reason meant little if anything. In particular, he exposed the Nazi
deputy RJarwahne an<l th^ methods of Judge Vogt, th arousing
the Nazi press to a high pitch of fury.

Nor did the Communists show any gratitude:

201

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

No thanks to Sack's defence, Torgler was acquitted. The transparent
weakness of the case against Wim, his own courage and the bold defence
of Dimitrov furnished the conditions for his acquittal The moral
pressure of world opinion secured it.

Yet, Dr Sack had been the only man to volunteer for the job,
and the only German lawyer to protest against the lexLubbe, Le. the
decree of 29 March 1933 which enabled the Government to
impose the death sentence retrospectively. And had he not paid
for two expensive trips to Paris and London out of his own
pocket? According to Torgler :

I once again made inquiries whether the Party had any objections to
this lawyer. The reply was : 'Everything is in order.' And my wife
added: They have even given me money for Dr Sack.' 88

But soon after the main trial opened in Leipzig, the Communists
changed their minds. One day, just after he had told foreign
correspondents that he was fully satisfied with Dr Sack and there-
fore did not require the services of Arthur Garfield Hays, 88 Torgler
noticed his ailing mother among the spectators: 'She was given
permission to exchange a few words with me, and used the occasion
to slip me a note from my comrades. We were nearly caught at it.'

That evening, when Torgler, who as we saw had just expressed
his confidence in Dr Sack, read the note, he was utterly perplexed :

I simply failed to understand. One moment- they told me ^v^ryi-liing
was in order, and now they wrote: The Central Committee asks you
to take the first opportunity to disown Dr Sack as an agent of Hitler/
Added was a rather stilted paragraph instructing me to tell the Court
that Goebbels and GSring had set the Reichstag on fire. The thing
was signed by Wilhelm Pieck. I argued with myself for at least twenty-
four hours. If I complied, I -would cause a sensation, and that would
make an extremely good headline. But what -would happen to
me. . .?

And, indeed, it does not require too much imagination to realize
what would have happened to Torgler had he carried out the
orders Pieck sent him from his safe refuge abroad. But then, the
Communist Party, realizing that they could no longer use Torgler
in Parliament, had only one use left for him : to let him be a martyr
for the cause.

I had &flm between two stools: Fascism and Bolshevism. ... If I
really told the Court that G5ring and Goebbels had set the Reichstag

202

THE TRIAL

on fire - without being able to produce a shadow of a proof for this
allegation - was I not simply signing my own death warrant . . .?

dy confess that these Party orders broke my spirit. I had
resolved to throw myself into the struggle with enthusiasm, now I

1 1 m * + f . 1 *&

I must ftankl

resolved to ti y _ &e-~

was paralysed, and without friends. . . .**

THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR'S DILEMMA

After the lengthy preliminary investigation, the Public Pro-
secutor was handed tnirty-two volumes of depositions, and the
task of weeding this unwieldy mas* of papers into a convincing
indictment proved extremely onerous for even such experienced
lawyers as Dr Werner and his assistant, Dr Parrisius.

Dr Karl Werner, who had come to the bar in 1926, was *a zealous,
somewhat dry official who had grown grey in the service of the
law'. 85 Whereas Torgler still thinks that Werner was not at all cut
out to play the part of Torquemada, Otto Braun, remembering his
own bitter experiences, called him a reactionary
the errors of the Right, and with pitiless clear-sight when it came to
those of the Left. 86

Though Werner had previously acted as Public Prosecutor to
the Supreme Court, the Reichstag fire trial was his most important
- and most embarrassing - case by far. He might not have realized
it at first, but as the trial proceeded he must often have wished most
fervently that someone else were in his shoes. Here the sketchy
witnesses for the prosecution stepped out of the dry pages ofjudge
Vogt's record, were made flesh, and - one and all - turned into
miserable swindlers, psychopaths and hardened criminals. An old
German saying has it that only a rogue can give more than he owns,
and it did not take the Public Prosecutor long to realize that most
of his witnesses owned nothing at all. Some were such transparent
liars - for instance Anna Meyer and the chauffeur Thecl, who had
sworn they had seen Dimitrov near the Reichstag on the night of
the fire - that they had to be dropped without further ado, and none
of the others were very much better either. As a result, Dimitrov
was able to keep jeering; at Dr Werner and his 'classical indictment'.
Indeed, the Brown Book was right to assert that the only remarkable
thing about that legal document was its impressive size of 235
pages.

In any case, -we can understand why Dimitrov wrote to his
lawyer:

203

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

It is most regrettable that the indictment has not been published to
this day, for its publication would be my best defence. I am certain
that my position, as the accused, is incomparably sounder than that of
the Public Prosecutor -who must substantiate his indictment before
the Court and before public opinion. I don't envy him at all

No, the Public Prosecutor was in a truly unenviable position, for
though. Diels had warned. Hitler and Goring repeatedly against
trying to involve the Communist Party leaders, Goring had
insisted on taking just that course.

Only because poor Dr Werner had to carry out the orders of his
superiors, was Dimitrov able to proclaim that Goring and Gocbbels
had rendered yeoman service to Communism by pressing th^jr
ridiculous charges in the Supreme Court.

All these facts must be borne in mind by anyone wondering ho w
so paltry a document as this indictment could ever have been
presented in a court of law. Because he had to uphold Goring's and
Hitler's thesis that the Reichstag fire was a desperate attempt on the
part of the Communists to stop the irresistible march of National
Socialism, Werner had to dutch at even the most fragile straws. No
wonder that all the pieces of evidence assembled by Judge Vogt and
the Prosecution collapsed like a house of cards under the merciless
probing of the defence, and particularly of Torgler's lawyer, .Dr
Sack. It was largely thanks to him that all Judge Vogt's witnesses
were unmasked as hardened t*rimmai\$ t pathetic liars, Nazi fanatics,
police informers, Communist renegades, hysterical old women,
and psychopaths.

It did not help Dr Werner that he fought a desperate struggle on
behalf of every one of them - no single witness was able to establish
that *"hft Communists had, at the Hm^ in question, rna^c any plans
for an organized uprising, in which case the Reichstag fire could
not have been a Communist 'signal' for anything. To save his case
from utter collapse, Dr Werner himself was forced to ask for the
acquittal of the three Bulgarians. His fiasco was complete when the
Court acquitted Torgler as well. The Court's verdict was, at the
same time, a verdict on Judge Vogt and his preliminary

What the Court was left with was only one m*n who had done
his utmost to incriminate himself without any prompting from
the police, from the "RvatntniTig Magistrate, or from the Public
Prosecutor. That man was Marinus van der Lubbe.

204

ii. The German Court and its Shadow

THE COURT

WHEN the case against 'Van der Lubbe and Accomplices' was duly
sent for trial to the Fourth Criminal Chamber of the Supreme
Court in Leipzig, the accused found themselves before the very
same Bench which, in September 1930, had tried three army
officers - Ludin, Scheringer and Wcndt - for National-Socialist
subversion in the army. One of the witnesses on that occasion was
Adolf Hitler who stated on oath that he intended to come to power
by legal means.

The President of the Court, since 1931, had been Dr Wilhelm
Biinger. Before then, Dr Buncer was a wdl-known National
Liberal politician, who had served as Saxon Minister ofjustice, and
even as Prime Minister of Saxony. His appointment to the Supreme
Court was frowned upon by his professional colleagues, most of
whom considered him a political failure rather than a legal success -
possibly out of jealousy.

Dr Biinger's associate judges were Dr Coenders, Dr Rusch, Dr
Lersch and Dr Frodich. Coenders was described by Douglas Reed 1
as having 'a massive, finely carven head surmounted by masses of
waving silver hair' and as having a voice 'with the vibrant re-
sonance of a cathedral bell*. Another observer, however, dis-
approved of Coenders's behaviour during Goring* s testimony on
4 November: The judges listened to [GSring's] deliberations quite
expressionlessly; die only exception was Dr Coenders who kept
nodding with satisfaction, and beaming all over his face/ 2 How-
ever, most permanent observers praised the strict impartiality of
DrFrodich.

The tensely awaited trial opened on 21 September 1933, in the
presence of eighty-two foreign correspondents. So lanje was the
rush for press tickets that a system or 'rationing' had to be in-
stituted* Naturally, Dr Goebbels saw to it that his 'Marxist enemies'
and the hated Manchester Guardian, were sent away empty-handed.
However, two Soviet representatives of Tass and Izvestia were
admitted later.

205

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

"We owe the description of the strange procession in which the
accused were led into the courtroom to Douglas Reed :

A being of almost imbecile appearance, with a shock of tousled hair
hanging far over his eyes, clad in the hideous dungarees of the con-
victed criminal, with chains around his waist and wrists, shambling
with sunken head between his custodians - the incendiary taken in the
act. Four men in decent civilian clothes, with int^lligffnra 'written on
every line of their features, who gazed sombrely but levelly at their
fellow men across the wooden railing which symbolized the great
gulf fixed between captivity and freedom- . . . Torgler, last seen by
many of those present railing at the Nazis from the tribune of the
Reichstag, bore the marks of great suffering on his fine and sensitive
face. Dimitrov, whose quality die Court had yet to learn, took his
place as a free man among free men; there was nothing downcast in
his bold and even defiant air. little Tanev had not long since attempted
suicide, and his appearance still showed "what he had been through,
Popov, as ever, -was quiet and introspective. 8

The general appearance of the incendiary-in-chief, van der
Lubbe, caused a tremendous stir among the observers. Was this
shadow of a man really so dangerous that he had to be put in rhafns
like a common murderer? Sitting in the dock with downcast head,
he looked far more like a terrified child than a terrorist :

According to the affidavit and also to the police witnesses, van der
Lubbe was intelligent, mentally alert, and quick to respond. But the
van der Lubbe whom we were now shown was a mental wreck,
completely broken and dull-witted. 4

The proceedings were opened by Dr Bunger promptly at 9.15
ajtn., with a dignified speech which, with slight modifications, was
reported in the VolkiscnerBeobachter of 22 September 1933, and also
in Brown Book II:

The enormous repercussions of the event which constitutes the back-
ground of this trial have had the consequence of elevating the subject-
matter of these proceedings to the rank of universal interest. It has
formed the object of passionate discussion and speculation in the press
of the whole world. Attempts have been mad* to anticipate the
results of these proceedings. It does not, however, follow that this
Court is entering upon its task with preconceived views or with its
mind already made up. So far that has never been the custom either in
Germany or abroad. Nor has prejudgment of the issues of a trial in
the press been usuaL

206

THE TRIAL

The struggle between these various conflicting theories has not
affected the Court before which these issues come to be tried. This
Court will pass sentence solely upon the results of the proceedings
within its cognisance. For the purpose of this Court's decision only
facts which are revealed in the course of the proceedings before it can
have weight. Not only is this trial open to the public of all lands with-
out restriction but the prisoners are represented by counsel without
let, hindrance or condition. It has been said that no foreign lawyer has
been permitted to appear for the defence. In this connection it must
be observed that the law only permits such a course in exceptional
circumstances. In the present case, the Court in the free exercise of
its unfettered discretion has not seen fit to permit the admission of
foreign lawyers. Not only has the Court seen no occasion for their
admission but it holds the view that such applications as were tna/1^
for this purpose were not directed to serve exclusively the interests
of the prisoners, but were chiefly intended to cast doubt on the
independence of German justice.

In this connection, it might be worth quoting Professor
Friederich Grimm:

The question has been raised abroad why no foreign lawyers were
admitted to this trial In van der Lubbe's case, the answer was simple
for he had expressly refused the services of a Dutch lawyer; in the
case of the other accused, and particularly the Bulgarians, it -was
obvious that the briefing of foreign counsel could only serve the ends
of propaganda. . . . No court in the world would have admitted foreign
lawyers to a political trial once there was even the slightest risk that
tVigir admission might endanger the safety of the state. 5

The generally objective Swiss correspondent, Kugler, however,
had grave doubts : *I am completely baffled. The renown of German
jurisprudence would clearly have been enhanced had foreign
lawyers been admitted.* 6

Now, though Kugler had every right to be baffled, particularly
as his native Switzerland had often admitted foreign lawyers, it
seems doubtful whether anyone could have served his clients
better than the German advocates. Arthur Garfield Hays, for
instance, had nothing but praise for Torgler's counsel, Dr Sack,
and van der Lubbc, though he steadfastly refused to accept legal
assistance and though he would not exchange a single word with
his state counsel, Dr Seuffert, was extremely well served by the
latter-it was certainly not his fault that he failed. Nor is there any

207

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

doubt that Dr Teichert, the Bulgarians' lawyer, defended his clients
as best he could in the circumstances.

Moreover, most correspondents were agreed that Dr Biinger,
the President of the Court, set to work with great patience and
perfect courtesy to all. It was only as the trial proceeded that he
gradually succumbed under the tremendous cross that had been
placed on his somewhat too slender shoulders.

To begin with, the Nazis had begun to 'dear up* the Department
of Justice and all 'politically unreliable officials' were in danger of
instant flismiggal, Now, Biinger had been ma<fe a judge itndcr the
Weimar Republic, and knew full well that the new Government
expected him to atone for his 'evil* past. Needless to say, he became
gly nervous as th^ trial failed to produce the expected

results. To make things worse, Associate Judge Coenders thought
very little ofhis forensic gifts and made many caustic comments on
Dr Biinger' s clumsiness, absent-mindedness, and frequent mistakes.

In fact, as the trial ran its difficult course, Biinger got more and
more out ofhis depth. Nothing seemed to make any sense or to
hang together in any way. All the evidence was contradictory ; van
der Lubbe refused to pky by the rules, and the other accused kept
holding the Court in contempt. Worst of all, two of the accused
needed interpreters who muddled things further still,

On the very first day of the trial, Biinger earned Coenders's
understandable strictures when he asked van der Lubbe : 'Have you
ever been an active National Socialist, I mean have you ever
pretended to be one except in Sornewitz?'

As Coenders noted laconically, van der Lubbe had not even been
active as a National Socialist in Sornewitz. Moreover, that whole
business had already been cleared up when Biinger asked his
leading question.

A typical sample of the President's bungling was his examination
of Constable Poeschd :

BQnger: 'You started giving your evidence yesterday during the
inspection. 9

Poeschd: 'No, not yet-*

President: 'Not yet?

Poeschd: 'No/

President: 'How is that?

Poeschd: *I merely took the oath.'

President: *You took the oath? Well, that's splendid. When I asked

208

THE TRIAL

you last night I thought you said that you had not taken the oath. 9
Pocschcl: On the contrary, I said that I had taken the oath.*

Biinger's time-consuming excursions into irrelevant issues are
best appreciated from the following sample :

Bunger: 'You said that there were four officers. "Who were they?'

Poeschel: 'Lieutenant Lateit, Constable Losigkeit, another officer
and myself/

Bfinger : 'But that only makes three. Who was the fourth officer?*

Poeschel: 1 don't know him by name.'

Bunger: 'Ah, so there was another one !*

With this and other clumsy interrogations, Bunger kept leading
the Court into one blind alley after another, wasting not only hours
and days, but weeks and months.

A tragi-comical scene -was enacted on 18 October 1933, when
the Court examined the evidence of the Reichstag official Robert
Kohls. Kohls had alleged that, on the night of lie fire, Torgler
failed to answer his telephone. When Krueger, a telephone expert,
testified that the ringing tone recurred every ten seconds, Bunger
remarked:

'In that case, Herr Kohls must have misinformed us. He said the sound
was ss ss - ss.'

Dr Sack: 'May I remind the Court that it was I who made that
sound. I said "Was it sss?" and the Public Prosecutor said: "Wasn't
it mmm?" It was you, Mr President, who suggested "sss" and the
witness Dusterhoeft who suggested "111111".*

These edifying reflections on possible ringing tones covered
many pages of the Court's records. Another illustration of Dr
Bunger'slegal prowess was given on 6 December, when the Court
rose to consider a motion by Dimitrov, and returned after a brief
recess.

Bunger: *Please be seated. The Court refuses the request of the
accused Dimitrov that the sentence passed on the leaders of the
uprising on November 9th 1923 [the Hider putsch] be read out here.
Or was that a motion of yours, Mr Public Prosecutor?*
Dr Werner: 'I have submitted no such motion.*

Clearly Dr Biinger's memory was such that it did not even last
him from bis chambers to the courtroom.

209

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

In his address to the Court, the Public Prosecutor, Dr Werner,
expressed his thanks to all those 'thousands of fellow-Germans'
who felt obliged to report what observations they thought might
have been relevant to the case, first to the police, then to the in-
vestigating magistrate and finally to the Public Prosecutor's office
or the Court,

The combined chance of attracting world attention as a witness,
of currying favour with the new German masters, and of carrying
off the rich reward of 20,000 marks, proved quite irresistible to a
host of shady and self-seeking characters. All ot them felt that even
if their evidence did no good it certainly could do no harm.
Naturally, no one volunteered to appear as a witness for the
defence; in feet those defence witnesses who were subpoenaed
proved rather reluctant and - sometimes - rather untruthful. One
of these was Ernst Torgler's 'friend*, the journalist Walther Oehme,
who lied about the time he had visited Tor gler on the day of the
fire.

In contrast to the hesitant and vague witnesses for the defence,
the witnesses for the prosecution alftook the stand with amaring
self-confidence. What they had to say, they said with perfect
assurance. Thus the star witness Hclmcr, who swore that he had
seen van der Lubbe in the Bulgarians' company, identified van der
Lubbe with an emphatic: 'I would sooner mistake my own wife
than the accused van der Lubbe/

So definite were the witnesses for the prosecution, and so unsure
those for the defence that foreign journalists kept remarking on the
striking distinction between die two categories. In every other
trial, this very distinction would have made the Court sit up and
take notice, particularly when the general quality of the pro-
secution witnesses was as poor as it proved to be here. Yet Dr
Werner, the Public Prosecutor, could not afford to be very dis-
criminating since, as he confessed, he had been unable to rfjjg up
*. . . a single person who had direct evidence that the four accused
[Torgler and the Bulgarians] had participated in the crime 9 . 7

Clearly, in a totalitarian state, justice stands on feet of day.

And so the trial dragged on under the critical eyes of Nazis and
Communists alilr^. Like a blind man in a maze, Dr B linger followed
every possible trail, clinging to every possible due as Theseus did
to Ariadne's thread. Yet the more he tried, the more he became

210

THE TRIAL

engulfed in a yawning abyss ofboredom, and the more he revealed
the absolute aimlessness of the whole trial.

To make things worse, B linger adopted quite a different manner
to the two classes of witnesses, so much so that it was easy to tell
from his tone alone whether a given witness appeared for the
prosecution or the defence. Understandably enough, Biinger, who
must have come to realize that he was making no headway what-
ever, vented his spleen on the 'obdurate* and persistent causes of his
failure, the accused and their witnesses. On the other hand, all those
witnesses for the prosecution who obviously tried so hard to help
the 'truth* to victory, naturally needed every kind of encourage-
ment and sympathy.

As a result, witnesses for the defence, who in any case were
afraid to open their mouths, had their slightest slips treated with
utmost scorn and severity, while witnesses for the prosecution were
encouraged to come out with the wildest feats of fantasy. Time and
again the Public Prosecutor and the President intervened to help
witnesses for the prosecution out of their difficulties.

A Dutch newspaper summed it all up as follows :

National Socialist witnesses quite especially, are protected against
every kind of reprimand. All of them are handled like unboiled eggs,
indeed with every consideration and politeness. This distinction has
become so blatant that the tone in which the Court addresses a witness
is a dear indication, of the latter's political colour. 8

Douglas Reed took much the same view. Thus he tells us that,
when Dr Sack wished to lay bare the discrepancies in the witness
Karwahne's testimony, Dr Biinger intervened with: There will
always be discrepancies in such statements, and I must protect the
witness against the suggestion that he intentionally, or through,
negligence, concealed anything/*

THE 'SUBSTITUTE INCENDIARY'

Douglas Reed - undoubtedly one of the shrewdest and best-
informed observers of the Leipzig trial - has described the court
appearance of Georgi Dimitrov:

His exchanges with Dr Bunger - who told him sharply at the start
that he came into Court with the reputation of indiscipline during the
preliminary examination and had better comport himself differently
now were the beginning of a dud which lasted fifty-seven days. In

211

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

vain did the little judge . . . seek to subdue Dimitrov, to compel V>im
by admonition, by threat of expulsion, by repeated expulsion itself
to be meek, to behave himself as a disreputable Bulgarian Com-
munist should who is under grave suspicion of tampering with the
edifice of the Reich. Dimitrov felt himself not only innocent, but
as good as any man in Court, and was not prepared to have an
inferiority thrust on him which he did not feel. Nothing could stop
him. At me end, the Court itself had a certain rueful affection for the

an A dauntless rn^rt.

The great pomp with which the trial was conducted did not
impress Dimitrov for a single moment. His intelligence was razor-
sharp and, unlike his two compatriots, lie had a good command of
the German language, and was therefore able to expose the
prosecution's case for the sham it was.

When he was first arrested, Dimitrov had been afraid that the
'Fascist police 9 might have recognized him as the leader of the West

European Branch of the Comintern. Imagine his surprise when
instead he discovered that they were seriously trying to blame him
for a crime that had been committed at a time when he had a perfect

alibi! No wonder that he refused to believe his enemies would
be stupid enough to make him stand trial before the Supreme
Court.

AVhen Dimitrov presented his alibi to Judge Vogt, the Tvyamfn
ing Magistrate neatly countered that in that case Dimitrov must
certainly have prepared the fire and then gone offto Munich for the
sake of the alibi, leaving van der Lubbe to take the blame. That was
also the view adopted by the Public Prosecutor.

Now, Dimitrov had an inestimable advantage over his judges:
he knew that the Communist Party was completely innocent otthe
Reichstag fire. Only in one respect was there complete agreement
between him and the prosecution : both were absolutely convinced
that van der Lubbe must have had accomplices.

Once Dimitrov recognized the shallowness of the case for the
prosecution, he used his quick wit with unerring skill. A man whose
name few people had heard when the trial opened, had become
an international celebrity, and a godsend to the Communists, by
the time the trial was over.

To Dr B linger, on die other hand, Dimitrov's behaviour proved
a constant provocation, and a test beyond endurance. As Dimitrov
continued flinging veiled insults at the Court, Bunger increasingly

212

THE TBIAL

lost his original composure. In the end, he looked for poisonous
barbs in even the most innocent remarks and repeatedly excluded
Dimitrov from the triaL The only result was an increase in Dimi-
trov' s popularity with the press.

Biinger was, in fact, treating Dimitrov much as Judge Paul Vogt
had done before him. The Bulgarian's very bearing was an affront
to both, for he would miss no opportunity of exposing his
judges.

After every expulsion Dimitrov came back into the courtroom
with renewed vigour. He was always most careful to behave with
formal courtesy; what made him so insufferable, indeed so
terrifying, was the biting irony with which he attacked his
accusers, often to the great amusement of the public gallery.

A typical example of how tense Dr Biinger became every time
Dimitrov opened his mouth, is the following incident. Dimitrov
was recalling his previous request that Detective-Inspector Heisig
be cross-examined on the evidence of a witness, and added :

*As I remember, I was completely taken aback when the Public
Prosecutor agreed to this request.'

President: 'You were taken aback! You really must omit these
gratuitous remarks which, almost without exception, are affronts to
this Court. I am telling you so for the last time.'

After further skirmishes, during all of which Dimitrov remained
completely unruffled, while the President could barely control his
temper, Dimitrov said quite unexpectedly and very quietly:

'And furthermore, Herr President, please allow me to say so you
are extremely nervous today, I don t know . . .*

President: 'I am not at all nervous; it is just that your constant
repetitions and impertinent interjections force me to cut you short.
In fact, I never get nervous, I would like to reassure you on that
point, but I cannot possibly let you go on. I cannot and I will not.
You simply do not respond when you are spoken, to in civil tones.
That is the simple truth of the whole matter. Well, let us proceed.*

Dimitrov: 'You ran, of course, throw me out, Herr President, I
know you have the right to do so, but please allow me, the accused,
to say a word or two about the documents presented today . . /

President : 'Provided you are not just taking another liberty. If that
is the case, I shall simply refuse to near you,

Dimitrov: 1 merely call a spade a spade.'

President: 'It's for me to decide that.'

213

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Dimitrov: 'Of course, it's sheer bad luck for the prosecution that
a whole series of important witnesses are psychopaths, opium addicts
and thieves.'

President: 'I object to the expression "bad luck", and therefore will
not n^t*** you zurtncr*

Dimitrov: "That would be quite -wrong of you, Herr President.'

Once again things had come to a head. The Court retired, and
returned with the warning that Dimitrov would be automatically
ejected if he were guilty of the least impropriety. It added that he
would have been expelled even earlier, had tnis not been the last day
of the trial.

After the luncheon recess, the remorseless Dimitrov started
plaguing the harassed Court with yet another petition.

Dimitrov: 'May I request, Herr President, that, for the sake of com-
pleting the judgment you have just read out, you also read out the
verdict on the Rightist putsch in Munich on the 8th and 9th
November, 1923. If it should be necessary to give reasons for this
request, I ask for permission to do so/

President: 'No. We shall decide about this and the other petitions
afterwards.'

Dimitrov: 'A National Socialist putsch.'

President: 'I heard you. I am not deaf.'

Dr "Werner: 'I object to the petition, for clearly it has no bearing
on the question of who burned the Reichstag.'

Here we have another perfect illustration of the double standard
applied by a Court which saw fit to admit as evidence Communist
outrages that had no earthly connection with the Reichstag fire, but
refused point-blank to allow Dimitrov to introduce evidence about
similar National Socialist acts of subversion.

On the last day of the trial, Dimitrov also settled his score with
House-Inspector Alexander Scranowitz, who had originally alleged
that he had seen the three Bulgarians in the Reichstag but who later
recanted. Dimitrov's reference to the matter once again brought
out the incompetent worst in Dr Bunger :

President (to Scranowitz): 'You can no longer say so with any
certainty?*

Scranowitz: 'No, not with the same certainty/

Dimitrov: 'With what certainty?'

President: 'You say you can no longer say so with the requisite
degree of certainty? 5

214

THE TRIAL

Scranowitz: 'Not with enough certainty to state on oath: "It was

President: *You cannot do that?*

Scranowitz: 'No, I cannot.'

Dimitrov: *Herr President, I should like to point out that when I
saw Herr Scranowitz in the courtroom for the first ritn^ I immediately
said to mysel this must be the Macedonian terrorist who murdered
ten Communists. But as I could not believe my eyes, I did not tell
the Court that Herr Scranowitz was this Macedonian terrorist, and
even less that . . .'

The rest ofDimitrov's sentence was drowned in laughter.

From all these dialogues and arguments, one thing emerges quite
clearly : the greater Dimitrov's composure, the greater Dr Biinger's
discomfiture. Dimitrov's very presence gave the President
palpitations. In this connection a Swiss journalist reported the
following characteristic incident:

Someone made an interjection in an undertone, and the President ...
turned irately to Dimitrov: 'Be silent ! Hold your tongue !* It fnrn*A
out that Dimitrov had not so much as opened his mouth. . . . 10

THE FIRST FOUR EXPULSIONS

Dimitrov's first expulsion from the courtroom occurred on 6
October 1933, when, according to the foreign press, he was ejected
for 'quite inexplicable reasons' 11 or *on a ridiculous pretext'. 11

On that day, the President put it to Dimitrov that the documents
which the police had removed from his briefcase and from Vn suit-
case seemed to belie his protestations that he was exclusively
concerned with Bulgarian affairs. Afraid that if his real position in
the Comintern were ever discovered all would be up with him,
Dimitrov kept itigigtrng that all these documents had been planted
by the police. For instance, when Dr Bunger produced a pamphlet
issued by the Central Committee of the German Communist Party
dated 3 March 1933, and entitled: 'The Burning of the Reichstag ,
Dimitrov simply claimed that he had 'neither seen, possessed, nor
read such a document' and that he had certainly never been asked
about it by the police. Thereupon Dr Bunger read Dimitrov's own
statement of 9 March 1933, the day ofhis arrest, in which Dimitrov
admitted having obtained *hi* pamphlet from *Jnprccorr' (Inter-
national Press Correspondence) for which he had allegedly been

215

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

working. Now Dimitrov became excited: 'Impossible! This
statement is not the one that was read out to me at the time.*
(Dimitrov had consistently refused to sign any statements.)

The President now called Detective Officer Kynast to tell the
Court about a 'Pharus' map of Berlin found among Dimitrov's
effects. Kynast stated that he had found crosses on this map and
correspondin crosses on the street index. The crosses referred to

the Palace, the Reichstag and the Dutch Embassy.

Dimitrov immediately asked to see the map, looked at it, and
exploded with: *At the time of the police investigation these
crosses were very thick. Now they are very thin !' 13

Somewhat taken aback, the President then asked him for what
reason he thought the crosses might have been altered, to which
Dimitrov replied mysteriously that he would come back to the
matter.

When the Public Prosecutor, who had introduced the map as a
possible link between Dimitrov and van der Lubbe, asked whether
Dimitrov admitted that it was his own, Dimitrov replied: 'I admit
that I bought a map. Whether it is this particular one, I cannot
say/ 14

He added that, in any case, he himselfhad certainly not made the
crosses; the -whole thing was a police fraud.

when the President warned him not to make offensive remarks
about police officers, Dimitrov, disgusted at the stupid manner in
which the police were trying to manufacture a link between him
and van der Lubbe, burst out with: 'I can't give any guarantees for
the police.*

Half incensed and half amused, the President replied: *We shpll
just have to make do without your guarantees.'

Whereupon Dimitrov

. . . took it upon himself to deliver an elementary lesson c
ing code to the ignorant police officers. What lie had lea:

on deGLpher-

j j -
led. OL

his illegal stay in Berlin, might be of great use to those Nazis who, at
this very moment, were cajryitig on th^ir nefarious activities in
Czechoslovakia and in Austria, using false nam^ an j codes. 1 *

When he added: 'The police have shown great incompetence
and incomprehension,' die President sprang to his feet and the
Court filed out in solemn procession. On their return, Dr B linger
announced that Dimitrov would be removed 'for disobeying

216

THE TRIAL

repeated admonitions to desist from insult-ing police officers'. 17

Furiously, Dimitrov snatched up his briefcase, shouting:
'Monstrous! Monstrous! 9

And while two policemen hustled him out he added: 'My
sentence has already been pronounced in another place.' 11

Dimitrov had been somewhat impertinent, but when all was
said and done, his head was hanging by these idiotic and, to say
the least, suspicious pencil crosses on the map. Moreover,
Dimitrov's remark that he could not give any guarantees for the
police had a very serious, indeed a highly embarrassing, back-
ground, for when they searched his room the over-zealous police
officers had quite clearly exceeded their powers : they had not pro-
duced independent witnesses (Article 105, Grim. Code) ; they had
not carried out the search in the presence of the suspect or of his
representative (Article 106) ; they bad not handed the suspect a list
of all confiscated articles (Article 107); they had not placed all
confiscated documents in sealed envelopes or asked the suspect or
his representative to seal them (Article no).

It was only because of these undeniable errors and omissions, that
Dimitrov could stand up in Court and allege that the police had
tampered with ie papers and the *Pharus' map. This embarrassing
fact was quite specifically referred to in the verdict where we read
that 'it is impossible to establish the truth [about die crosses on the
map, etc.] since no inventory of the confiscated documents was
made. 9

On ii October Dr Bimger announced that the Court would
move from Leipzig to the Reichstag for an on-thenspot inspection.
Dimitrov immediately requested permission to put a question to
the Court.

Dr Bungcr: 'No, Dimitrov, it's no use at alL I have told you more
than once that the fyinrritial Code does not allow you to keep ?kwig
questions or m airing long statements an*l you ***** hardly expect that
I should allow you, of all people, who to put it very mildly have
repeatedly tried to abuse the Court's indulgence, at least with respect
to the putting of questions and the making of statements, to do some-
thing to -which the Rules of Procedure do not entitle even you. Please
calm yoursd*

From a purely formal point of view, the President was com-
pletely in the right. Dimitrov's persistent refusal to allow his

217

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Government-nominated counsel, Dr Teichert, to act on his behal
was, in feet, a technical breach of the Rules of Court. But Dimitrov
was not dismayed by such trifles.

Dimitrov: 'Herr President . . .'

Dr Bflnger: 'No, I don't want to hear another word. Please don't
bother me, it's no use at alL Sit down.'

Dimitrov: 1 should like to . . /

President: 1 cannot allow you to speak!'

Dimitrov: 'I am here not only as Dimitrov the accused but also as
die defender of Dimitrov/

Once again the Court rose in a flurry and, on its return, made
known that Dimitrov -was expelled from Court imtil further notice
(and hence barred from attending the reconstruction of the fire
which was to be enacted on the following night).

Before he was led out of the courtroom, Dimitrov quickly
handed a note to Dr Teichert, saying: 'I had wanted to ask these
questions, ask them for me !'

After his second expulsion, Dimitrov sent a letter of protest to Dr
Btinger which deserves to be quoted in full:

Berlin, October 12th, 1933.
Xo the President

Fourth Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court.
Mr President,

When the Supreme Court rejected every one of the eight lawyers
chosen by me, I had no option but to defend myself as best I could.
As a result I have been compelled to appear in Court in a double
capacity : first as Dimitrov, the accused, and second as the defender of
die accused Dimitrov.

I grant you that both as the accused and also as my own defender,
I may have proved annoying and awkward to my accusers and their
principals. However, I cannot help that. Once the Prosecution has
been careless enough to put tn^ a completely innocent tnati^ in the
dock as a substitute incendiary, they must also be prepared to accept
the resulting annoyance. They have called the tune, now they must
dance to it Whether they like it or not is neither my affair, nor is it
my problem. I am a political suspect appearing before a Supreme
Court, and not a soldier in barracks or a prisoner-of-war in an intern-
ment camp.

I am firmly convinced that, in this trial, van der Lubbe is no more
than what one may call the Reichstag-fire Faust, manipulated by the
Reichstag-fire Mephistopheles. The miserable Faust now stands

218

THE TRIAL

before the bar of the Supreme Court, but Mephistopheles has
disappeared.

As an innocent suspect, and particularly as a Communist and as a
member of the Communist International, I have the utmost interest
in discovering every last detail of the Reichstag-fire complex, and in
bringing the vanished Mephistopheles to justice. My questions serve
this one object and nothing else. I have no need to make Communist
propaganda before the Supreme Court, die more so since the best
propaganda for Communism has already been made, not by me, but
by the mere fact that Dr Parrisius' rlaggiral indictment accuses
innocent Communists of burning the Reichstag.

I have the natural right to defend myself and to participate in* the
trial both as the accused and my own defender. Expulsions from
sessions of the Court or from inspections of the scene of the crime

arc quite incapable of intim^^i-frig me. These expulsions from what
are the most important sessions and reconstructions are not only an
open violation of my right to defend mysel but also serve to show
the world that my accusers are not at all sure of their own case. The
expulsions thus only serve to add further substance to CTstmg Com-
munist allegations about this trial

If this insupportable treatment of myself is continued, I confess
quite openly that I shall feel compelled to reconsider whether there is
any purpose at all in my reappearing before the Court, irrespective
of the cot* 1 sentiences.

Dimitrov' s brilliant use of a foreign language, his controlled
tone, particularly in the last paragraph, his nattn^dignit^
did not rnicQ their effect on Dr Bunger. Dimitrov was Henceforth
given access to (at least some of) the Court files, and was allowed to
petition the Court, albeit to have most of his petitions rejected. In
other words, the Court gave him tacit permission to perform his
double act of accused and defender. In addition, Dimitrov was
explicitly granted the right to deliver a final address.

On 3 1 October 193 3 , one of the least reliable witnesses of all, the
glazier Gustav Lebermann, was put on the stand.

When Dimitrov tried to discover why this witness had been
fetched out of prison at such short notice, Dr Bunger told him that
Lebermann had only come forward on 13 October. Dimitrov
insisted on being tola who had called Lebermann as a witness.

Dr Bunger: The Public Prosecutor. But I must order you straight
away not to enter into completely pointless arguments. After all, you

219

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

cannot stop the Public Prosecutor or the Court from hearing any
witnesses or any kind of material evidence. 9

Dimitrov: 1 merely wished to point out that the chain of witnesses
is now dosed. After giving us National Socialist deputies and journa-
lists, the Public Prosecutor now gives us criminals and thieves. 9

"When Dimitrov ignored Dr Werner's objection, and started
again on the 'chain of witnesses', the irate Dr Bunger snapped at

"him;

'Dimitrov, I have told you on more than one occasion that though
you may put questions to witnesses, you cannot address die Court
on all sorts of subjects. There is a time and a place for doing that. You
may ask questions now, but nothing dse. Do you wish to put any
questions? To the witness, mind, and not to the Public Prosecutor! 9

Dimitrov: 4 I should like to put a question to the witness of Dr
Parrisius 9 [Dimitrov obstinately refused to address the Assistant Public
Prosecutor by his full tide].

President: No! Anyway, what question do you want to put to die
witness i

Dimitrov: *I should like to ask die following question, Herr
President ...

President: 'You have no questions, then? 9

Dimitrov: 'I have the following question . . /

President: Then for goodness 9 sake ask your question. 9

Dimitrov: *He mufc a statement on October 13th, that myi<*h is
dear, after he had read the newspaper reports on die Reichstag fire
trial He has said that much here. He was in prison, he was not at
large. He was given the third degree. He haa hopes of being dis-
charged on the basis of the lies he na told. I gylr who inflv
to utter these shameless an<l disgraceful . . /

Dr Banger: 'Keep quiet 1 1 will not have you insult witnesses. 9

Even so, Dr Bunger, to whom Lebcrmann's character was no
more of a mystery than it was to anyone else in Court, turned to the
witness with: 'Has anyone at all influenced you? 9 Naturally
Lcbermann replied: c No one at all! 9 and Dr Bunger was able to tell
Dimitrov: *Your question has been answered. 9 But Dimitrov had
die last word: 'May I congratulate you on this witness, Herr
Rnchsanwah?' he asked Dr Parrisius. And this time he used the full
title.

This skirmish was to have grave outside repercussions on Dr
Bunger. On i November 1933 the Vdlkischer Beobachter objected
that neither the President nor the Public Prosecutor saw fit to

220

THE TRIAL

rebuke Dimitrov for his malicious remark that the chain of
National Socialist witnesses was now dosed. The paper concluded
with a massive threat:

We National Socialists hope that even Dr Bfinger's Court will find
some means of preventing such unseemly and insulting attacks by a
Communist criminal on National Socialist witnesses.

One can understand why Dr Bunger got cold feet immediately,

hefiilly

and why, the very next day, he emphasized that; had he fully
understood Dimitrov's unseemly remarks, he would most certainly
have intervened at the time. He added that the accused would in
future be kept under even stricter control, whereupon Dimitrov

Tne Vdlkischer Beobachter has every reason to be satisfied now.'

And with this he cut Bunger to the quick. Once again he ordered
the police to take Dimitrov out of the courtroom, and once again
Dimitrov cried:

'Monstrous ! And this is supposed to be a fair trial !'

T-n the general uproar, *hft rest of his unflattering remarks were
lost.

On 3 November, Dimitrov was back again, as aggressive as ever.
A number of witnesses from the Soviet Union were testifying that
they had met Popov and Tanev in Russia. One of the witnesses was
a Frau "Weiss, whom the Public Prosecutor treated with great
suspicion, suggesting, inter alia, that Weiss was not her real name.

Dimitrov, who had obviously been spoiled by success, inter-
vened to remark that, in the Soviet Union, anyone could choose
any name he liked. He added : *I am extremely surprised to see how
ignorant the Public Prosecutor is of Soviet law.'

Dr Werner whispered something into the ear ofDr Bunger, who
immediately rebuked Dimitrov for his impertinence. Dr Bunger
then apologized to Dr Werner, saying that he had not understood
what Dimitrov had been saying.

Dimitrov, for his part, objected to Dr Werner's whispers and
exclaimed : *You stillhave a lot to learn, Herr Oberreichsanwalt !'

Once again the Court filed out, and once again it decreed that
Dimitrov, the incorrigible, be excluded from the trial - this JITM
for two days.

This last expulsion was particularly annoying to Dimitrov, sincr
next day a very special witness - Hermann Goring - was to appear

221

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

in Court. For most observers of the trial, it had been a great
sensation when, on 17 October 1933, Dr Werner had asked for
leave to call the Storm Troop leaders and Police Chiefs Helldorff
and Heines, together with Ministerprasident Goring and Reichs-
ministerDr Goebbds. The reason for this unusual step was that

. . . die Brown Book had made the monstrous allegation without
trying to produce a shred of evidence - that Minister Goebbds was
thie indirect, and the Prussian Ministerprasident G5ring the direct,
instigator of the plan [to burn the Reichstag]. Once such impudent
and unsubstantiated slanders were put abroad, the victims must be
given the opportunity of clearing their names. 18

Now, any other Court would, of course, have dismissed Dr
Werner's request out ofhand, since what the Court had to establish
was not the guilt or innocence of Goring or Goebbels, but that of
the five accused. Moreover, by acceding to this request, the Court

into the hushed solemnity of the courtroom, but also to drag out
the trial quite unnecessarily. As if to revenge this outrage on her
dignity, Justice dealt the Nazi ministers, who had hoped to use the
courtroom as a forum for clftansing their sullied names, a re-
sounding blow. As her tool she chose a man whose courage more
than stood up to the bullying of even his mightiest enemies.

THE FIFTH EXPULSION

Next day, on 4 November 193 3, to everybody's surprise, a
nonchalant Dimitrov took his place in the Court from which he
had only just been banished for two days. Since it seemed unlikdy
that Dr Bunger had reversed his own decision by himself, the
general feeling was that he had been given a 'hint' from above.
Obviously Goring did not wish to give the impression that he had
deliberately avoided a meeting witn the wily Bulgarian.

A Swiss correspondent has described the dramatic rlirrupr of the
trial as follows:

"Whole swarms of policemen, armed with carbines, surrounded the
Reichstag building [where the Court was meeting at this stage],
checking every visitor with unusual vigilance.

The improvised courtroom was completely packed long before the
judges arrived. People kept craning their necks to catch a glimpse of

gnA WflUmown pgrermahttr* as tVi^ Atmmfap Ambassador, Minister
222

I. The Burning Reichstag.

2. The Nazi Leaders at the scene of the fire. Hitler talking to Prince
August Wilhelm, G6ring (second from left) and Goebbels (second from

right).

3. The Burnt-out Sessions Chamber.

4- Marinus van der Lubbe
before the fire.

5. Dimitrov, Popov and Tanev

6. Van der Lubbe giving evidence.

7- Goring giving evidence.

8. Van der Lubbe and. Torgler in court.

THE TRIAL

of Trade Schmidt, the two Prussian Ministers, Russ and
Minister of Justice Frank, and Under-Secretary Koerner. The tension
was tremendous.

audience waiting. At 10.30 a.m. - over an hour late, and mereby
expressing his contempt for the highest German court

. . . Gdring entered the room in the brown uniform, leather belt and
top boots of an S.A. leader. Everyone jumped up as if electrified, and
all Germans, including the judges, raised their arms to give the Hitler
salute.

when all the arms had dropped agaii\ tk* President addressed
the folio wing harangue to Goring:

"Herr Prime Minister, in naming you and Herr TigflrVigrmtiigtw Dr
Goebbels as witnesses "whom he desired to Mimirion before the Court,
the Public Prosecutor stated that you could not be deprived of the
nght to express yourselves under oath concerning accusations and
slanders which have been directed against your Excellencies from
certain quarters, particularly in the so-called Brown Book, regarding
the subject matter of this trial. The Supreme Court desires to express
its concurrence in *lig statement.' 1 *

Biinger's view of Goring's role did not suit the latter in the least.
In a completely 'tmmmistfri*\ 9 tone, he explained his own views of
the matter:

'Herr President, you have j ust said that I was summoned as a witness
in order to dear my name of accusations and slanders made by the
Brown Book. I should lifcg to emphasize that I consider my evidence
important in two quite other respects . . .'

And the President of a German Supreme Court meekly allowed
a witness not only to instruct him in court procedure, but also to
launch an election address lasting for over three hours. After every
jibe at his enemies, Curing's fens roared out their approval while
the President who, at the beginning of the trial had expressly for-
bidden 'all expressions of approval, of disapproval, or even of
astonishment', sat by without a murmur.

The great dash between Goring and Dimitrov began with
Dimitrov's rising from his seat *. . . with as much unconcern as if
he were about to cross-examine an ingignffifani- grocer or publican
from Neukolln and not the Prussian Prime Minister*. 80

223

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

As Dimitrov faced Goring, it became apparent that neither
would give way. At the time, the Bulgarian was a hounded alien
and in the hands of his political opponents; twelve years later the
tables were turned - as Goring's political star reached its nadir,
Dimitrov's rose towards its zenith: by the time Goring had to
answer for his war crimes to the victors* tribunal at Nuremberg,
Dimitrov had become premier of Bulgaria. Though no one could
have predicted these developments in 1933, Dimitrov behaved
all along as if there were not the least doubt about the final
outcome.

Dimitrov started by trying to rattle Goring with a host of minor
questions. Then, quite suddenly, he brought out his big guns:

Dimitrov: 'On February 28th, the morning papers published a state-
ment or an interview by Ministerprasident Gdring on the Reichstag
fiie. This report alleged - 1 remember its general sense very clearly -
that the fire had been started by the Communist Party, that Torgler
was one of the culprits, ati<l that the arrested "Dutch Communist"
van der Lubbe carried his passport and a membership card of the Com-
munist Party on his person. I should like to know how Minister-
prasident Gdring could have known at the time that van der Lubbe
r^A a. Communist Party membership card on him?*

G5ring : *I must n^tr\it tfra*, so fir, I have not bothered unduly about
this trial, that is, I haven't read all tie reports. I did gather, however,
that you are an exceptionally bright fellow and hence I should have
expected even you to know die correct answer to this question, which
-was given long ago. I have already testified that I don't rush round
pulling things out of people's pockets. In case you don't know, I have
a police force to do that sort of thing and in case you don't know
that cither *he police search evciy criminal and in case you don't
know even that they report their findings to me. The whole thing
is really quite simple.'

Dimitrov: *Herr Ministerprasident . . . ' (President: 'Dimitrov!')
If I may speak quite freely . . .'

President: 'First listen to what I have to say. I should like to draw
your attention to the fact that this question has been fully answered.'
(Dimitrov: 'If I may speak quite freely . . .*) The question has been
answered I tell you. If you want to ask a further question then please
do so, but in such a way as to make its purport quite dear from the
start*

Dimitrov: *Yes, quite dear. I should like to put it to the Herr
Ministerprasident that die three police officers who arrested and
*rarchfx\ van der Ltibbc all agtwrl that no (Vitn mirm'

THE TRIAL

ship card was found on him. I should like to know where the report
that such a card was found rap^ from/

G6ring: *I can tell you that very easily/ (Dimitrov: 'Please do !*)
1 was told by an officer. Things -which were reported to me on the
night of the fare, particularly those which cropped up in the course of
explanations by officials, could not all be tested and proved. The
report was made to me by a responsible official and was accepted as a
fact. As it could not be immediately tested, it was announced as a
fact. When I issued the first report to the press on the morning after
the fire, the interrogation of van der Lubbe was not concluded. In
any case, I do not see that anyone has anything to complain o because
it seems to have been proved in the trial that van der Lubbe had no
such card on him.'

Dimitrov: 'As Prussian Ministerprasident and Minister of the
Interior, did you order an immediate police investigation?*

President : 'I could not understand a word of what you were saying,
so please repeat the last sentence/

Dimitrov: 'I was saying, did Herr G6ring, as Prussian Minister-
prasident, as Minister of the Interior and as Speaker of the Reichstag,
give immediate orders for the apprehension of van der Lubbe s
accomplices?' (GSring: 'Yes, of course.*J 'After all, he is the one
and he has said so himself -who bears me full responsibility for his
department and for his police. Is that not so?' (Gdring: 'Quite so I*)
'I would like to ask the Minister of the Interior what steps he took on
February 28th and 29th or on the following days to make sure that
van der Lubbe's route to HenningsdorC and his stay and meetings with
other people there, were investigated by the police in order to assist
them in tracking down van der Lubbe's accomplices?*

President: *Your question is quite long enough 1*

Dimitrov: 'Quite clear enough!'

Gdring: 'I have already acknowledged my responsibility. You
didn't even have to ask your question. Iiyou had only paid attention,
you would have heard me say that, as a Minister , I don t have to track
criminals like a detective, and that I leave it to the police to make
detailed investigations. ... I merely gave orders to carry out the
investigation with the utmost speed and with the utmost care. Of
course, I, too, was fully aware that van der Lubbe must have had
accomplices' (Dimitrov: 'Quite true!') 'and I ordered their speedy
arrest.

Dimitrov: 'When you, as Prussian Ministerprasident and Minister
of the Interior, let it be known in Germany and abroad that the
Communists burned the Reichstag' (Goring: 'Exactly P) 'that the
Communist Party' (Gdring: 'Quite so!*) 'was responsible, that the

225

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Communist Party of Germany conspired with van der Lubbe and
other alleged foreign Communists, did you not, in fact, influence the
police and judicial investigations in a particular direction, thus pre-
venting the apprehension of the real incendiaries?'

G5ring: 1 know what you are getting at, but dicrc is really no
problem at alL The police -were from the start given orders to pursue
their investigations in every possible direction, no matter where these
investigations led them. But as I am not a detective myself but a
responsible Minister, it was not important that I should trouble myself
wim trifling details. It was my business to point out the Party and the
mentality which were responsible for the crime. All I had to deter-
mine was : is this a civil offence, or is it a political offence? Now it was
clearly a political offence and at tha same time it became clear to
me, and it remains just as dear today, that your Party were the
criminals.'

President (to Dimitrov) : 'Regarding your reference to influencing
the judges ... you did refer to that, oidn't you? To jnflyiriring fh e

Dimitrov: 'No. What I said, Herr President, was that the police
inquiry &nA later the preliminary examination could have been
influenced by these political directives, and mainly in one direction,
That is why I am asking my question, 9

Gdring: 'Herr Dimitrov, that, too, is admitted. If the police were
allowed to be influenced in a. particular direction, t^cp, in any case*
they were only influenced in tine proper direction. 9

Dimitrov: 'That is your opinion. My opinion is quite different.*

Gdring : 'But mine is the one that counts/

Dimitrov: 'I am only the accused, of course.'

President: *You may only ask questions.'

Dimitrov: 1 am doing that, Herr President. Does Herr Minister-
prasident Gdring realize that those who possess this alleged criminal
mentality are today controlling the destinies of a sixth part of the
world, namely the Soviet Union?* (Gdring: 'Unfortunately.') "The
Soviet Union has diplomatic, political and economic contacts with
Germany. Her orders provide work for hundreds of thousands of
German workers. Does the Minister know that?*

G6ring: "Yes, I do/ (Dimitrov: 'Good!') 1 also know that the
Russians pay with bills and I should jprefer to kno w their bills are met.
In that case Russia's orders would really provide work for our

workers. But that is not the point here. I don t care what happens in
Russia. Here, I am only concerned with the Communist Party of
Germany and with the foreign Communist crooks who come nere
to set the Reichstag on fire/

226

THE TRIAL

(Loud *bravos f from the public.)

Dinritrov: *Yes of course, bravo, bravo, bravo! They have the
right to fight against the Communist Party, but the Communist
Party of Germany has the right to go underground and to fight
against your Government; and how -we fight back is a matter of our
respective forces and not a matter of law/

President: *Dimitrov, I will not have you moVing Communist
propaganda here/ (Dimitrov: 'But he is m airing National Socialist
propaganda !') 1 most emphatically order you to desist. I will not have
Communist propaganda in *h courtroom !*

Dimitrov: 'Herr President, arising out of my last question, there is
just one further question that needs explaining in any case: the
question of party and philosophy. Herr Ministerprasident Gdring has
stated that ne is not concerned with -what happens in the Soviet
Union, but only with the criminal mentality of *h^ Communist
Party. Is the Minister aware that this criminal mentality rules the
Soviet Union, the greatest and best land in the world?*

Gdring : 'Look here, I will tell you what the German people know.
They know that you are behaving in a disgraceful fashion. Tncy know
that you are a Communist crook who came to Germany to set the
Reichstag on fire, and who now behave yourself with sheer impu-
dence in the face of the German people. I did not come here to be
accused by you.' (Dimitrov: *You are a witness.*) In my eyes you are
nothing but a scoundrel, a crook who belongs to the gallows. 1
(Dimitrov: "Very well, Tm most satisfied. . . .*)

President: 1 have repeatedly warned you not to make Communist
propaganda . . .* (Dimitrov tries to speak on.) 'If you continue in this
vein I shall have you put outside. I have told you not to make Com-
munist propaganda, and you cannot wonder that the witness gets
angry wb.cn you continue to do so. I order you most emphatically to
desist from doing so. If you have any questions, then let them be
purely factual and nothing more.'

Dimitrov: 'I am highly satisfied with Herr Gdring's explana-
tion . . /

President: ^Whether or not you are satisfied is a matter of com-

down. Do so !'

Dimitrov: 1 am asking a purely factual question.'

President: 1 have asked you to sit down.

Dimitrov: *You are greatly afraid of my questions, are you not,
Herr Minister?

227

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Gdring: *You will be afraid when I catch you. You wait till I get
you out of the power of this Court, you crook P

President: *Diniitrov is expelled for three days. Out with him. I 9
(Dimitrov is hustled out.)

A Swiss comment was:

The public applauded enthusiastically. They did not appreciate the
full g|gni - fi<"aTif^ of what had just been happening : the whole trial Ti?*l
been turned into a farce. For the world had been told that, no matter
whether the accused was sentenced or acquitted by the Court, his
fete had already been sealed." 1

GOEBBELS

Dimitrov's meeting with Goebbels promised to produce another
highlight of the trial. It took place four days later, on 8 November.

Unlike Goring, Goebbels arrived in Court very punctually, and
declared his willingness to answer all questions. After a preliminary
skirmish, Dimitrov dropped his bombshell: he asked whether or
not Goebbels had made a broadcast in which he had blamed the
Reichstag fire not only on the Communists but also on the Social
Democrats. Dimitrov s purpose in asking this question was quite
plain: if Goebbels now admitted he baa been wrong about the
SodalDemocrats, might he not have been equally wrong about the
Communists? The following dialogue thpn ensued:

Goebbels: 1 shall gladly answer this question. I have the impression
tfriat. Dimitrov is ""sing this Court as a platform for malcing propaganda
for the Communist or the Social Democratic Party. Now I know
what propaganda means, and he is quite wrong to think that he can
trip me up with such questions. If -we accuse the Communists, we do
not forget their close relationship with the Social Democrats . . .'

Dimitrov: *Tn the autumn of 1932, Tnnder the Papen an<t Schleicher
government, a series of bomb attacks took place in Germany. As a
result, there were trials and a number of death sentences were passed
on National Socialists. I should like to know if these terrorist acts in
1932 were not committed by National Socialists? 9

Goebbels: It is possible that agents provocateurs might have been
planted in the National Socialist Party to commit such acts. The
National Socialist Party has always used legal means; that is why it
preferred running the risk of an internal crisis to coming to terms with
its violent Stennes wing. 1 [This part of the evidence was not published
by the German press.]

228

THE TRIAL

Dixnitrov: 'Is the witness aware that National Socialists, who were
condemned, to death, for the murder of an opponent,
demonstratively greeted by Chancellor Hider?*

Goebbels: "I know *ha* Dimitrov is referring to the Potempa case
[where five Nazis were sentenced to death for killing a man in his
bedroom!. The National Socialists involved felt they were right to do
away with a Polish insurgent who had betrayed Germany wi<W the
guise of being a Communist official. They "were condemned for tht T
The Ffihrer felt he could not desert these men, who thought they acted
in the interest of the Fatherland, on the foot of the scaffold, *n<l
sent them telegraphic greetings.'

Dimitrov: 'Does the 'witness realize that many political murders
were committed in Germany? That the Communist leaders Karl
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were murdered . . .'

President : 'Silence ! We are trying to find out who set the Reichstag
on fire. We can't possible delve back so far into the past.'

Goebbels: 'We might as well talk about Adam and Eve. When
these murders you complain of were committed, our movement V?<1
not even been bom.'

Dimitrov: 4 Were not the aqntig of German statnrrn^" like
Erzberger ami Rathenau the associates of *fr^ National Socialist
Party. . . f-

President: *I cannot allow this question unless the Minister wishes
to answer it specifically.'

Goebbels: 'I do not wish to evade this question. The murders of
Erzberger and Rathenau were not committed by associates of the
National Socialist Party. At the time, our movement was still very
restricted to Munich. I am a National Socialist, ^r\A I am

ready to answer for everything the National Socialist movement has
done and omitted to do. At the time, Hitler was in the military
hospital in Pasewalk, suffering from war-blindness. I cannot tell who
the culprits were. Some fled abroad, some were shot by the Prussian
police or committed suicide. Most of these people arc no longer alive,
ati<l I am not particularly interested in them.'

Dr Werner: T consider it extremely courteous of the Minister to
answer this question, but I submit that it would be far better not to
allow such questions to be answered at all, for they are only asked for
propaganda purposes.'

Goebbels: 1 am merely answering Dimitrov's questions in order
that the world press shall not be able to say that, in the face of his
questions, I remained downcast and silent. I have given reason and
answer to greater m^r> than tfhfa little Communist agitator.'

Dimitrov: 'All these questions arise out of the political case against

329

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

me. My accusers allege that the Reichstag fire was meant to overthrow
the German constitution. I now ask what sort of constitution -was in
force on January soth and which on February 27th?'

Goebbels : The "Weimar Constitution for better orfbr worse. It was
legal and we recognized it as such. What changes in it had to be made
we did not wish to leave to the Communists but reserved for our-
selves. I consider that constitutional changes are necessary.'

Dimitrov: "That is dear proof that you have no respect for the
German Constitution.'

President: 'Leave the Constitution alone !'

Dimitrov: 'Are you aware, Herr Minister, that your spiritual
brothers, the National Socialists in Austria and Czechoslovakia, have
also to work with illegal methods, with false addresses and false
signatures?*

Goebbels: It seems to me that you are trying to insult the National
Socialist movement. I will answer you with Schopenhauer: Every
man deserves to be looked at but not to be spoken to.

There followed a brief duel between Goebbels and Torgler, who
reminded the Court that strikes and not violence had always been
the chosen weapons of the German working class. He himself had
always tried to keep the political struggle to one of intellectual
weapons.

Then Dr Goebbels turned, ostensibly to the Court, but in reality
to the world press, and revealed the true reason for lus and Goring s
performances in Court:

'Herr President, I have been at the greatest pains to contradict the
accusations which are made against the German Government and the
National Socialists with minute scrupulosity. That is the reason why I
have gone to siT^ 1 lengths in describing all the circumstances surround-
ing the crime, and all the known facts. On behalf of the German
Government I express regret that the lying accusations made in the
Brown Book are still being circulated abroad and that the foreign press
has done nothing to remedy this state of affairs. I expect the foreign
press to be decent enough to report the facts I have given, and to cease
publishing vile slanders about a decent, diligent and honourable
people.'

Goebbels's attempt to administer an antidote to the Brown Book
misfired altogether, not least thanks to Dimitrov's refusal to put the
'right* kind of questions. Le Temps, for instance, wrote on 10
November 1933:

230

THE TRIAL

In his evidence yesterday, in the trial against the alleged incendiaries of
the Reichstag, Dr Goebbels seems to have addressed himself to the
foreign press. He requested that his statements should be fully re-
ported. The Minister ofPropaganda is deceiving himself ifhe i

that he has contributed anything new to the content of the triaL 22
And the Brown Book conduded gleefully:

For the most part, the foreign press was not satisfied with Goebbels's
'real' account of the facts. His appearance before the Court was
received with as little favour as his colleague's had been. Li his fore-
word to Dr Sack's book on the trial (Rcichstagsbrandprozess, p. 12)
Professor Grimm openly expresses regrets that despite Goebbels's
appeal the results in the foreign press were and remain unfavourable.
He particularly pointed to the treatment of Gdring's evidence by the
foreign press and complained that instead of being accepted as con-
tradicting the accusations of the Brown Book it was largely taken as
confirming them! 28

Clearly Dr Goebbels, too, had lost his battle against Miinzenberg
and Dimitrov.

When it became dear that neither Goring's heavy broadsword
nor Goebbels's nimble foil had succeeded in subduing the irre-
pressible Dimitrov, the atmosphere in the courtroom changed
perceptibly. Foreign observers like Douglas Reed suggested that
the Court felt it could obviously not be expected to succeed where
such great men as Goring and Goebbels h^ so signally failed. The
lawyers, and particularly Dr Sack who had continually asked
Dimitrov to refrain from malring remarks behind fag bade, were
suddenly on smiling terms with him : *Dr B linger at times became
almost paternal in his altercations with Dimitrov; Dimitrov was
occasionally seen roaring with laughter at some joke he shared with
his police custodians.' 84

This relaxation of the courtroom atmosphere was greatly helped
by Dimitrov's correct manner. Thus, on 25 November 1933, he
had the following brief exchange with Dr Biinger :

President: TDimitrov, a foreign newspaper has said that it is you who
are really conducting this triaL I must gainsay *fa, but you will see
that your manner makes this impression on public opinion. You must
submit yourself to my authority and I desire that in future you restrict
yourself to aglrfng questions.'

Dimitrov: 'As defendant, I recognize only one superior, and that is

231

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

the President of the Court. But I beg my superior to give me die
possibility of defending myself and elucidating the truth. 9

He had the last word once again.

DIMITROV'S 'SATANIC CIRCLE*

Just as famous as Dimitrov's description of van der Lubbe as the
'Faust of the Reichstag fire* who danced to the tune of an unknown
Mephistophdes (an unmistakable allusion to Dr Goebbels with his
duo foot) was his reference to a 'satanic cirde of prosecution
witnesses'.

The whole thing was based on a ring Dimitrov had drawn to
illustrate the roles played in the Reichstag &

1. Berthold Karwahne

2. KurtFrey

3. Dr Ernst Droscher

4. Major Hans Weberstedt.

Berthold Karwahne, who was born in Silesia on 3 October 1 877,
and whom nature had underendowed with scruples and over-
endowed with, a love of brutality, threw himself into politics at an
early age. At first, he joined the Social Democrats, but at the end of
World War I he moved further and further to the Left, ending up
with the Communist Party in 1920. In 1927, he made a complete
volte-face and -went over to the National Socialists, who always
received reinforcements from that quarter with open arms.

That same year Karwahne was appointed an alderman; shortly
afterwards he was elected a Member of the Diet, and in 1930 a
Member of Parliament. The Reichstag Handbook wisely refrained
from men tin-ping anything other than his ^?t^ and place of birth
clearly a full curriculum vitae would have proved extremdy
embarrassing to himself and to his political friends.

Over the years Karwahne managed to climb higher and higher
up the Nazi ladder. In 1933, he was made Head of the State
Chemical Syndicate in which capacity he persecuted his political
opponents with such atrocity that his name still makes his former
colleagues wince today.

After the collapse of the Third Reich, which had hdped
Karwahne to amass a small fortune, a well-known Hanover lawyer
said of him: 'He is the most despicable and infamous man I have

232

THE TRIAL

ever met - and I have met many despicable characters in my job !
He is a bully lacking any sense of fairness, decency or morality/

Others have called him a 'petty but sadistic mgn' and 'a spineless,
brutal fellow*. To Torgler's Counsel, Dr Sack, Karwahne must
have been anathema, not only because of his political past but also
because ofhis bearing in Court. Thus while Dr Sack never disguised
his personal respect for the Communist Ernst Torgler, no one in
Court was left in any doubt about the contempt in which he held
his fellow National Socialist Karwahne.

On one occasion, Dr Sack asked Karwahne why, on allegedly
seeing van der Lubbe in the company of Torgler, he had im-
mediately said to liimsglf; *That is one of the typical criminals
Torgler always has round him/

Karwahne, taken unawares, denied the whole thing, and Dr
Biinger intervened at once to say that he, too, could not remember
having heard the witness say anything of the sort. When die record
proved Dr Sack right and the President wrong, Karwahne con-
ceded quite nonchalantly: *If it's in the record and if the steno-
graphers have put it down like that, then I might easily have said it.
No doubt it's slipped out of my mind/

In the verdict, the evidence of Karwahne (and ofhis two com-
panions) was described as being of little value, 'the more so because
they might have been involuntarily influenced by the [police]
remark : *That one [van der Lubbe] is the incendiary *, and because
they were already convinced the man they had seen in the Reichstag
must be die culprit.' Moreover, whereas they had described van der
Lubbe's features (which they had had every opportunity of study-
ing at police headquarters) in exact detail, they were unable to say
anything at all about the most unusual clothes van der Lubbe had
worn - no wonder, for when they saw him in the police station he
was wearing a rug over his shoulders ! And yet, Karwahne and his
companions were no more to blame than the police, who had quite
unlawfully allowed them to take a good look at the criminal and
then to 'identify' him later.

It was this very police misdemeanour which probably saved
Torgler's life, for Karwahne would have been quite capable of
'identifying' van der Lubbe as Torgler's companion without ever
having seen kirn anywhere. In that case, however, Dr Sack might
not have been able to call Karwahne's bluff

233

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

The Austrian Nazi, Stefim Kroyer, fiired no better in Court than
his friend Bcrthold Karwahne. The Court had this to say of his
alleged identification of van der Lubbe :

Kroyer was and remains under the spell of his original statement, for
he himself admits that any retraction of his statement to the police is
hardly possible inasmuch as - for better or for worse - he wrote an
article about it three days after his return to Austria.

All that can be said in favour of this witness is that he was a
simpleton, one whom Dimitrov found particularly good bait :

Dimitrov: 'The witness lives in Austria. We all know that the
National Socialist Party is illegal in Austria, and that thft members live
and work illegally.'

President : 'These remarks are uncalled for.'

Dimitrov: 'Does the -witness know that National Socialists are
living in Austria using false names and failing to report to the police? 9

President : 'I cannot allow this question. 9

Dimitrov: 'Does the witness know that National Socialist refugees
live in Germany -with false passports?'

President : 'I cannot allow this question.'

Dimitrov: *Do not Austrian National Socialists print newspapers
and leaflets abroad and send them to Austria? 9

President : 'What has all that to do with the Reichstag fire?'

Dimitrov: 'Li the indictment, Herr Parrisiiis has accused me, a
"Bulgarian Communist, of living in Germany illegally on a false pass-
port and working illegally for the Bulgarian Communist Party.'

When Kroyer objected that there is a great difference between
a Bulgarian meddling in German affairs and an Austrian working
in the Fatherland, Dimitrov retorted:

*Of course, there is a difference between my Communism and your
National Socialism. It is the difference between heaven and hell/

The Nazi Deputy, Kurt Frey, from Munich, came off slightly
better in the verdict,

Frey, too, had alleged that, when showing Kroyer over the
Reichstag, he had noticed Torglcr in the company of a badly
dressed individual with a 'curly shock ofhair and a coarse, common
face'.* 5 But when Frey was first confronted with van der Lubbe, he
was unable to maintain his original identification, and he was
accordingly commended on his honesty in the verdict.

234

THE TRIAL

Now, though Frey corrected one error, he persisted in a second,
viz. that he had seen Popov and Torgler huddled together on a sofa
outside the Communist Party rooms in the Reichstag.

In the verdict, the Court agreed with Torgler that he had shared
the sofa not with Popov but with the Communist Deputy, Dr
Neubauer, who, from a distance, could easily be mistaken for
Popov. Prey's evidence in that respect lacked inner probability*.
Unfortunately, the Court forgot this question of probability when,
in the absence of any tangible evidence, it nevertheless insisted that
van der Lubbe must have had accomplices.

The testimony of the National Socialist Press Officer, Major
Hans Weberstedt, proved to be a most unseemly mixture of sheer
fantasy and parade-ground swagger.

It was he who had 'immediately identified' two men waiting
outside Judge Vogt's chambers - van der Lubbe and Tanev - as the
two men he had seen together on the day of the fire. This fable was
seized upon by Vogt, who at once issued a press communique* to
the effect that van der Lubbe's 'association with foreign Com-
munists was an established fact'.

When the major repeated this fable in Court, Tanev protested
that Weberstedt was either mistaken or telling an untruth, where-
upon Weberstedt roared at him in his most solemn parade-ground
voice : 'I wish to declare that a German officer neither lies nor makes
mistakes.'

Tanev then pointed to the many contradictions in the major's
evidence, and stressed the feet that, since he (Tanev) did not speak
a word of German, let alone Dutch, he could not possibly nave
carried on a conversation with van der Lubbe.

When Tanev sat down, Dimitrov put the following question
to the major:

'Did you discuss these things with Dr DrSscher?*

Weberstedt: 'Of course,

Dimitrov: 'Very well, then. Weberstedt and DrSscher talked the
thing over. Weberstedt saw Tanev, Dr6scher saw Dimitrov. At the
risk of being expelled from the Court again, I should like to ask the
following question. I am my own defender. Did these two witnesses
divide the parts between than? Is that how German officers behave? 9

Though Dimitrov was strongly rebuked by the President, the
verdict nevertheless dispelled the myth that a German officer does

235

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

not lie or err, for it stated that Weberstedt probably fell victim to an
unwitting act of self-deception when he identified Tanev after he
had had a good look at him first. 'His belief that Tanev was the right
man was not spontaneous, but the result of long reflection. . . .
Weberstedt probably confused Tanev with the witness Bernstein,
especially as he claimed to have seen Tanev in the Reichstag
frequently when, in fact, Tanev had only entered Germany on
24 February.'

Torgler was able to refute another of the major's allegations,
namely that Communists ip^Ui^i^g a striking number of
foreigners - were always congregating in the Communist Party
rooms in the Reichstag. As Torgler explained, any such meetings
could only have taken place with the express permission of the
Speaker. That was particularly true of one me " - " - -
stedt had considered 'most suspicious'. In fact,

Gdring, the J ^

meeting; G5nng, the Minister of die Interior, later prohibited the
meeting by special decree. I then lodged a complaint against Gdring
the Minister of the Interior with Gdring die Sj ~" ~

The verdict also dismissed the evidence of the journalist, Dr
Ernst Droscher, the man who had first spread the rumour that
Georgi Dimitrov had been responsible for the bombing of Sofia
cathedral - a rumour which Judge Vogt had handed on to the press
without bothering to check its accuracy.

Droscher had also alleged that he had seen Torgler in the company
of a Tnflti whom he had 'recognized' as the Sofia assassin from a
photograph, adding i 'The man had so typical and expressive a face
that I could not possibly have mistaken him.' 26

Now, as we saw, the photograph was not of Georgi Dimitrov,
who had had to flee Bulgaria after the abortive uprising of 1923,
but of the lawyer Stefan Dimitrov Todorov, who wore a beard
while Georgi Dimitrov was clean-shaven.

With such witnesses the Public Prosecutor and the National
Socialists were quite unable to make an impression on the Court,
let alone on world opinion. The zeal with which, according to the
Court, these witnesses tried to 'contribute to the elucidation of the
truth' was rightly considered by most observers to be zeal in quite a
different direction.

236

THE TRIAL

THE 'RED' SATANIC CIRCLE

On 27 February 1934 - the anniversary of the Reichstag fire -
Dimitro v held a press conference in Moscow. In it he said :

... in prison and in Court we were heartened by the knowledge that
the great German Communist Party continued to stand firm. Loyalty
and devotion to their Party could be read on the faces of the working-
class witnesses who had been dragged into the Court from the
concentration camps . . .

In a subsequent interview, Dimitrov paid similar compliments
to the 'indomitable' Communist witnesses, and the Brown Book,
too, eulogized thgir heroic stand in Court.

All these praises were meant to hide the awkward truth - the
'bankruptcy of Communist solidarity' as the Neue Zwrcher Zeitong
called it on 23 October 1933.

True, there were quite a few witnesses from the concentration
camps who, to the utter dismay of the Presiding Judge, insisted on
speaking the truth now that their oppressors were no longer
standing over them. Bunger blustered and interrupted them at
every conceivable opportunity, for they proved a source of extreme
^in paiTf^ss^^^^^ to tne v^ourt*

But it was, in any case, not by prisoners dragged from concen-
tration camps against their will, but by ex-Communist volunteers
that the moral bankruptcy of the Communist Party was laid bare.
These in MI formed a circle no less repulsive tVia-n Dimitrov's circle
of Nazi witnesses.

In October 1933, the glazier GustavLebennann from Hamburg,
who was serving a prison sentence for theft and fraud, told the
Court that he had been a secret Communist courier before resigning
from the Party.

He went on to tell a hair-raising story made up of odd pieces of
information which he had obviously gleaned from reading reports
of the triaL Thus he alleged, that he hadmet Torglcr in Hamburg on
25 October 1931, and again in January 1932, when Torgler had told
hitn to keep himself in readiness for a 'bigjob*. Torgler would meet
hi in Berlin on 6 March and take him to the Reichstag where
Lebennann would receive detailed instructions. All Lebermann
was told at the time was that lie would be expected to rush about
the Reichstag like a lunatic in order to focus attention on himself, to

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

allow himself to be caught, and to 'admit* that he was a National
Socialist incendiary. Meanwhile the two real incendiaries - * Arthur'
and 'Black Willy ' - would quickly make their getaway.

When Lebermann refused to have anything to do with so * mean*
a trick, Torgler promised him a reward of 14,000 marks. In July
1932, Torgler visited Lebermann again, and when Lebermann
persisted in his refusal, Torgler punched him in the abdomen. He
had suffered from abdominal haemorrhages ever since.

While in prison in Liibeck, Lebermann tried to smuggle a letter
to his wife. In it he told her he was pretending to be mad in order to
be released. He also referred to his chronic stomach disorder.
Clearly Torgler's 'punch* had had nothing to do with his haemorr-
hages.

Lebermann's evidence was so preposterous that even Torgler
could not help smiling at it. He told the Court:

All I ran say regarding this evidence is how astonished I am that any-
one should utter such lies before the highest Court of the land. I have
never seen this man in my life. I have never been in Hamburg for any
length of time, and when I did go to

meetings of the Union of Post Office Workers, of the Union of
Municipal Officials and to address public meetings. Not a single word
the witness has spoken is true. Everything he says is a lie, from start

to

The impression Lebermann made on the Court was so bad that
the President expressed his reluctance to put him under oath.

Even the journalist Adolf Stein, who was highly prejudiced
against Torgler, was forced to admit that

the witness Lebermann really does not look as if he would allow
himself to be ill-treated by so slightly built a rnan as Torgler. More-
over, Lebermann, good atiarrliigt that he is, only remembered the
whole business on October 13th, 1933, after he had been reading
reports of the Reichstag trial in prison.

Yet so catastrophic was the lack of honest witnesses for the
prosecution that the Public Prosecutor could not afford to dispense
with even the most disreputable of them. He therefore argued rather
lamely:

4 Admittedly this witness has many previous convictions, and he is
238

THE TRIAL

certainly not what the Prosecution could have wished him to be. But
that is no reason for doubting his credibility . . . Lebermann's
testimony belongs to that category of statements of which I have
said that, though they point strongly to Torgier's guilt, they are
not in my opinion sufficient by themselves to establish that guilt
conclusively.' 27

Acquitting Torgler, the Court itself found that

... no credence whatsoever can be given to the evidence of the
witness Lebermann . . . whom the Hamburg County Court has
previously described as being of weak character and a morally inferior
person . . .

And that was the man whose credibility the Public Prosecutor
saw no reason for doubting !

Popov had insisted all along that he had only come to Germany
on 3 November 1932. It was to refute this claim, that the Public
Prosecutor 'found' the locksmith Oscar Kampfer in a concen-
tration camp. Kampfer, too, was an old convict whose previous
convictions added up to six and a half years' hard labour and one
and a half years' preventive detention. He admitted that he had, been
a member of the Communist Party and a Berlin district leader of
the "Red Aid* organization.

Kampfer alleged that he had put up Popov at his home, albeit
nnAfr a false name, from May to July and again in November 1932,
both times on Communist Party instructions. One day someone
brought Popov a case ofbotdes, and on one occasion Popov poured
a glass of brown fluid down die kitchen sink. The sink smelt of
benzol for hours afterwards. Another foreigner, whom Kampfer
identified as Tanev, had also called on Popov.

These allegations brought Popov, who had remained composed
throughout the trial, to his feet:

*Even my patience *^>** be exhausted. I have proved with official
documents and with witnesses from Russia that I could not have been
in Germany at that time. The witness Kampfer, who has four previous
convictions, is trying to buy his release from the concentration camp,
His whole testimony is one barefaced lie/ 28

The Public Prosecutor, however, thought otherwise:

'Kampfer used to be a wellr-known member of the Communist Party.
A number of witnesses have testified that, whenever the Communists

239

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

made trouble in his district, he was one of the ringleaders -not that he
often went out in front, for he generally preferred to egg others on
from the rear. But he is certainly not one to level false accusations
against a fellow Communist, In short, there can be no doubt that
Popov came to Germany in 1932 and that he tried to conceal his
stay/ 29

The Court produced a still less flattering picture of Kampfer :

Kampfer, who has many previous convictions and who is a very un-
trustworthy witness, has identified the foreigner who allegedly stayed
with frim from May onwards as Popov. Now the fact that he also
alleged that Tanev asked him for Popov, makes his entire testimony
suspect. Tanev did not even have a smattering of German. Kampfer s
fantastic story about a brown fluid . . . merely suggests that he must
have read newspaper reports of Dr. Schatz's evidence . . .

To the same category of witnesses as Lebermann and Kampfer
there also belonged the bricklayer, Otto Grothe, a former leader
of the Red ex-Servicemen's Union, and since 1921 a member of
the Communist Party. He was also Agitprop leader of the *Red
Aid* in the Wedding district of Berlin.

Grothe, who remained a Communist Party member until May
I 933 became one of the prosecution's star witnesses, so much so
that the indictment devoted no less than eleven pages to his
preliminary examination. The crux of his testimony "was that,
during a meeting on 23 February 193 3 , a fellow" Communist by the
name of Kempner had told him that Torgler "was planning to burn
the Reichstag, with the help of foreigners. Grothe further alleged
that Torgler, Thalmann, Popov and other Communists had met on
27 February for a dress rehearsal. This secret meeting had taken
place on *a small bench in the Tiergarten' .

Though Grothe kept changing the names of those who had
allegedly attended this secret meeting, Judge Vogt saw no reason at
all to distrust him. As a result, Grothe was allowed to take the stand
in the Supreme Court, and T m T < h time and effort was wasted on
what turned out to be a 'psychopathic case, subject to hysteria and
psychological disturbances'. 80

" ;e Vogt's credulity is the more surprising in that Grothe had
I that the meeting at which he was told about Torgler's plans

& place in the Karl Licbknecht House on 23 February, a day
on which, as Judge Vogt must have known perfectly well, the

240

THE TRIAL

Karl liebknecht House had already been, closed by the x
Characteristically, Grothe had made his first 'confidential

reports' to the police while he was still a self-confessed member of

the Communist Party.

The Communists, of course, could not swallow the fact that one

of their own number should have behaved so despicably, and they

accordingly disowned Grothe by rlaiming he had joined the 'Red

Aid' organization as a police spy 'before Hitler came to power'.

And indeed he had joined the Communists before that time, - in

1921, to be precise.

When two days of the Supreme Court's deliberations had been
wasted on Grothe, Dr Sack s junior, Hoist Pelckmann, caused a
sensation by charging Grothe with perjury. The Public Pro-
secutor tried to avert disaster, and argued that Grothe, far from
committing perjury, had merely been guilty of an understandable
confusion of dates. Even so, the President could not simply ignore
Pelckmann's request, and agreed to look into Grothe's evidence.

So weak was the Public Prosecutor's case that he put forward the
following, absolutely ridiculous, argument:

Grothe's testimony has now been checked, above all against that of
Kcmpner from whom Grothe claimed he had received his infor-
mation. Now, Kempner's outright denial of Grothe's story does not
really convince me. Kempncr, who is in prison on suspicion ofhaving
played a part in the events which form tn^ substance of this tri**^ has
very good reason to deny these allegations; they might easily in-
criminate Kcmpner VnTngfjf,

The Court once again dealt a severe blow to the Public Pro-
secutor when it dismissed Grothe's testimony as utterly unreliable.
In particular, Grothe's story of the meeting in the Tiergarten was
called improbable in the highest degree.

In short, Grothe had utterly discredited the

Magistrate, the Public Prosecutor, and the Communist Party to
which he had belonged.

The miner, Otto Kunzack, another important prosecution
witness, had a record of sentences for crimes of violence and
sexual offences. At the fimg of the trial he was in Naumburg

Penitentiary.

Kunzack testified that he had been a member of the Communist

241

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Party until March 1932. From 1921 to 1927 he -was a secret Com-
munist courier, in which capacity he had attended a secret con-
ference in Diisseldorf in 1925. The conference was presided over by
the well-known Communist Heinz Neumann, and attended by no
less a person than van der Lubbe. He could remember the latter's
name so clearly because it reminded him of the town of Liibben.
The young Dutchman had taken part in the discussion and had
been so violent that Kunzack had gained the impression he was
quite capable of committing any kind of outrage.

Van der Lubbe had further declared his willingness '. . . to go out
in front bearing the banner of the revolutionary proletariat'. 81

Later, Kunzack was forced to admit that van der Lubbe had not
delivered his 'fiery speech' in German, as he had originally alleged,
but in Dutch. A Swiss reporter mused: 'How fortunate for
Kunzack that the Court decided not to put him on oath. For this
witness tells the most brazen lies in the most incredibly transparent
manner/ 82

Kunzack stuck to his story even when he was told that, had van
der Lubbe really been present at the conference, he would only have
been sixteen years old at the time.

"When Kunzack, who had boasted that he had been a secret
courier, inter alia to Heinz Neumann, was asked by Associate-Judge
Cocnders to identify a photograph, Kunzack looked at it for a long
time, and then shook his head. He had fallen into a trap, for the
photograph was of Heinz Neumann. 88

Kunzack* s honesty as well as the gullibility of the

Magistrate are best appreciated from the fact that Kunzack wrote to
Judge Vogt from prison on 24 May 1933, offering to root out the
Communist terrorists with the help of their 'female associates', and
adding: 'And once I have proved mysel the rest of my sentence
will be remitted. And moreover I ask that what time I lose during
my interrogation be made good.' 84

Kunzack s further fantasies included the claims that he had met
Torglcr in the latter's 'office in the Karl liebknecht House*, when
Torgler had no office in that building, and that Torgler and the
Deputy Wilhelm Kasper had attended dynamite tests outside
Berlin. Torgler's retort that he had never even met Kunzack was
dismissed by die Public Prosecutor with: "Though the accused
Torglcr denies his part in the events described by the witness
Kunzack ... the Court must accept the latter's testimony/ 85

THE TRIAL

Once again, the Court was forced to take a different view - it
described the witness Kunzack as a completely untrustworthy
person who had tried to gain financial and other advantages from
nis testimony.

Tanev, too, was falsely accused by two ex-Communists: the
nriffrrlianf Bruno Bannert and the blacksmith Adolf Kratzert.

Bannert alleged that in 1927 and 1928 he had met Tanev every
month or so in the 'Red Aid' offices where he (Bannert) had worked
as Agitprop leader for the Brandenburg region; and Kratzert
alleged he had met Tanev in the Karl liebknecht House.

All these ex-Corn tnimist witnesses proved to be completely
consistent in one respect: they all refused to withdraw any part of
their baseless denunciations. The collapse of Communist solidarity
would therefore have been quite devastating, had Dimitrov and
Torgler not helped so much to redress the balance.

FALSE FRIENDS AND BABBLERS

On 28 October, the Supreme Court heard the evidence of the
journalist Walther Oehme. It was Oehme who had been mainly
responsible for convincing Judge Vogt that Ernst Torgler was a liar,
for whereas Torgler had explained mat Oehme had called on him
in the Reichstag shortly after 3 p.m., and that it was Oehme
with whom Karwahne, Kroyer and Frey must have seen him,
Oehme insisted that he had not met Torgler before 4 p.m. at the
earliest.

Since Torgler had no reasons for believing that Oehme was
lying, he desperately searched his memory for another visitor in
whose company the three Nazis might have seen him, and
suggested that it could have been Communist Deputies Florin or
Dr Neubauer. The Public Prosecutor then accused mm of trying to
change horses in midstream.

In the end, however, Oehme was forced to admit the real truth:
he had, in fact, been with Torgler at the time Torglcr had originally
stated. The incensed Public Prosecutor, who felt Torgler slipping
from between his fingers, vented his disappointment in Court:
'Oehme's alleged reason for withdrawing his previous testimony
is that he lied in order to protect his own valuable person and there-
fore betrayed Torgler, whom he is proud to call his friend.' 88

243

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

This might have been the right moment for the Public Pro-
secutor to ask himself whether the *liar' Torgler might not have
been speaking the truth all along.

When Torgler's counsel, Dr Sack, addressed the Court on the
Oehme incident, he said:

I refrain from telling the Court what I think of the witness Oehme, a
man who has said he considers it an honour to be called a friend of the
accused, Torgler ... I could sympathize widi Torgler ifhe lost faith in
mankind now, ifhe completely despaired of humanity. But perhaps
the accused Torgler mustlbear nis cross, perhaps he will have to drain
his cup ofbitterncss to the last drop. 87

When Dr Sack spoke these words, he was also thinking of
another of Torgler s 'friends' - the Communist deputy Erich
Birkenhauer - who, for much the same reasons as Oehme, had lied
about Torgler during the preliminary examination, thus enabling
the Public Prosecutor to say :

At frhft preliminary examination, Birkenhauer testified that he had
tried to get in touch with the accused Torgler on the day of the fire and
that - as the accused Torgler admits himself- he managed to reach
him over the telephone at about 4 p.m. It was arranged that Birken-
hauer would ring later in the evening. According to Birkenhauer:
'When I rang again at about 7 p.m., I was told by a woman that
Torgler was not available for the moment . . .' Now, it seems most
unlikely that a Party secretary should say her chief is not available, had
he been next door, in the antechamber, or anywhere near by. la my
opinion, it follows that the accused Torgjer was not anywhere near
the telephone, that the witness Rehme had no idea where he was, or
that she did know but did not care to telL I therefore conclude that
Torgler was away from his Party offices at about 7 p.m., Le. at just
about the time that die preparations for setting the Reichstag Session
Chamber on fire would nave been made. 88

Torgler kept insisting that Birkenhauer's story about the second
telephone call could not possibly be true. However, Birkenhauer
haa meanwhile fled Germany, and Torgler's counsel could not
challenge his testimony in Court. As a result, Judge Vogt became
even more convinced tnat Torgler was a brazen liar .

The Communists tried to cover up Birkenhauer's betrayal by
alleging that the Public Prosecutor had deliberately falsified his
testimony. Birkenhauer testified before the London Commission

244

THE TRIAL

that, far from telling him that Torgler was not available, the
woman had merely informed him that Torglcr was not yet ready to
fix the time for a meeting and had asked him to rfog again at 8 p.m.
In that case, however, Birkenhauer must have told yet another
lie, for the record shows that he declared before Judge Vogt on 17
May that:

I remember that I rang the Reichstag oncebefore, an hour orso earlier,

say at about 7 p.m The telephone was answered by a woman. . . .

She told me - as far as I can remember - that Herr Torgler was at a
conference or at a meeting. I then told, her that I wnulrl ring again T . r >P

Birkenhauer's story that he had rung Torgler, not at 4 p.rn., as
Torgler alleged he had, but at 7 p.m., was denied outright by
Fraulein Anna Retime, Torgler's secretary. The Court found :

Finally no proof has been adduced that Fraulein Rehme told Deputy
Birkenhauer at 7 p.m. that Torgler was at a meeting. In fact, there is no
evidence that any call was mane at that time- Birkenhauer h?* fled th^
country and did not testify before tie Supreme Court; his deposition
at t^e preliminary examination is not considered admissible evidence*
The witness Rehme does not remember the call, but does remember
that Torgler was expecting Birkenhauer's c^ll anrl t-hot she would
certainly have called Torgler to the telephone.

In fact, Birkenhauer made his second call shortly after 8 p.m.
Since the telephone exchange had closed down by then, Torgler
had to run down to Portal Five where he arranged a meeting with
Birkenhauer at Aschinger's. Obviously, Birkenhauer, too, had
tried to dear himself of suspicion at the expense ofhis 'friend*.

The newspaper report that Torgler was suspected of complicity
in the fire produced a spate of 'witnesses' who felt they had
some helpful contribution to make. Among them were Frau
Helene Pretzsch and her stepson Kurt Moeflcr, both of whom
suddenly remembered that they had seen Torgler carrying two
large briefcases on the morning of the fire.

B oth witnesses testified that Torgler looked as ifhe were carrying
an exceptionally heavy load. They also noticed that Torgler had a
'shifty* look. Next day, when Frau Prctzsch learned about the
Reichstag fire, she immediately said to her stepson: 'Now I know
what Torgler was doing with those heavy brie&cases lastnight!' 40

TorgW CT-plainf*! that, far from carrying incendiary material, he

245

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

had filled his briefcases with large quantities of newspapers, which
he had intended reading over the week-end. One of these brief-
cases was, in feet, found in his Reichstag rooms, but when it was
first shown to the witnesses, they insisted that it was not one that
Torgler had been carrying on 27 February. At the trial Moeller was
allowed to inspect the ominous brief-case and admitted: 'Well,
now that I have seen the briefcase packed with newspapers and
have felt its weight, I must admit that there was nothing extra-
ordinary in the way Torgler carried it.' 41

What strikes us as odd today is that such 'classical witnesses', as
Dr Sack called them, or such 'slight evidence', as the verdict had it,
should have been admitted in the first place.

The palm, however, went to the daytime porter Wilhelm
Hornemann, whose evidence earned him a roar of laughter from
the public. Hornemann tried to throw suspicion on Torgler by
alleging that he had noticed Herr Koenen, Torgler's subsequent
companion, 'sneaking' into the Reichstag on the day of the fire at
about 6.30 p.m., with his coat-collar turned up and with his glance
averted to the left.

The whole thing was, of course, utterly absurd. What well-
known deputy of long standing would have thought of sneaking
into the Reichstag past the porter, when he knew that the porter
had instructions to challenge all strangers?

Nor did Hornemann leave it at that, for he also alleged that on
the same afternoon he had seen three men leaving the Reichstag,
one of whom - later 'identified* by Homrmann as Dimitrov-had
said in broken German: 'The Reichstag is going up in the air in
fifteen to twenty minutes.'

Quite obviously Hornemann had not been told of Dimitrov's
unshakeable alibi. No wonder that Dimitrov's face was wreathed
in smiles through most of Hornemann' s evidence.

But who knows what would have happened to Dimitrov had he
not, by pure chance, been away from Berlin on 26 and 27 February,
had he not returned in a sleeper, whose attendant Otto Wudtke
remembered him clearly, and had he not started a mild flirtation
with Frau Irmgard Rossler, who was returning from a ski-ing
holiday, and to whom Dimitrov had introduced hjm^lf as Dr
Hediger?

. *

246

THB TRIAL

Another to take pride of place among the *show-ofls and con-
firmed liars', as Dr Sack called them, was the drunkard Leon
Organistka. Organistka went to the police with the 'important*
news that he and a friend, Oskar Miiller byname, had met van der
Lubbe and another Dutchman on 15 October 1932, in the vicinity
of Constance. They had talked, Organistka alleged, of many things,
and he particularly remembered van der Lubbe saying : "There will
soon be no more Reichstag in Germany/ and: 'If we Communists
don't soon have a turn there's going to be fire and brimstone in
Germany.' He greatly impressed the public by taming to van der
Lubbe during their confrontation with : 'Come on, van der Lubbe,
old mate, surely you haven't forgotten me?'

His friend Miiller confirmed Organistka's testimony and basked
in the latter's glory - until an offidalreport from Ley den established
that van der Lubbe had spent the entire October of 1932 in Holland
and that he had regularly fetched his weekly allowance at the
Leyden Post Office in person. The same report also invalidated the
testimony of Helmcr who claimed he had frequently seen van der
Lubbe and the two Bulgarians in the Bayernho

As moths are attracted to the light, so the witnesses for the
prosecution were attracted by the dazzle of publicity, and by the
glitter of silver. And, like moths, most of them got singed in the
process.

During the appearance of this weird procession of witnesses,
there was much nearly laughter in Court. This laughter must not,
however, let one forget the frightful reality: all these fawning and
servile men were falling over one another in their eagerness to send
innocent men to their death. Sober workmen, good mothers,
chauffeurs, waiters, locksmiths and housewives, babblers and fools,
no less than professional r-rimmak, were doing their utmost to
make their fintasi.es, lies, or delusions stick at any cost.

DIMITROV'S FINAL SPEECH

On 16 December 1933, one week before judgement was given,
Dimitrov was granted the Tight to address the Court on his own
behalf.

At last the moment had come for which Dimitrov had worked
throughout the long months of his imprisonment, and though Dr

247

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Biinger interrupted him from, time to time, Dimitrov proved more
than a match for birn- After one such, interruption, Dimitrov
said:

*I admit that my tone is hard and sharp. But my life has been hard and
sharp. However, my tone is frank and open, I seek to call things by
their correct names. I am not a lawyer appearing before this Court
defending just another client. . . .

*I <an say with an easy conscience that everything which I have said
to this Court is the truth. I have refused to testify on my illecal party. I
have always spoken with seriousness and from my deep con-
victions. . . .'

President: 'I shall not permit you to indulge in Communist pro-
paganda in this Court. You have persisted in it. If you do not refrain, I
flpft H imve to prevent vou trom ffpffa^ *^t^i

Dimitrov: 'I must deny absolutely the suggestion that I have
pursued propagandist aims. It may be that my defence before this
Court has had a certain propagandist effect. ... If the question of
propaganda is to be raised, then I may fairly say that many utterances
ma/Iff in this Court were of a propagandist r-hararfiMr T The appearance
nere or XToeboels ^^^* Cjonnjt no/i an indirect i^^^pfl PP^TOI y^ ^"^^t
favourable to fV |-mTmit " STn > but no one c^ n hold tngym responsible
because their conduct produced such results (laughter in Court). I
have not only been roundly abused by the press something to which
I am completely indifferent - but my people have also, through me,
been characterized as savage and barbarous, I have been called a
suspicious character from tbr Balkans and a wild Bulgarian. I cannot
allow such things to pass in silence. . . . Only Fascism in Bulgaria is
savage and barbarous. But I ask you, Mr President, in what country
does not Fascism bear these qualities?'

President: 'Are you attempting to refer to the situation in
Germany?'

Dimitrov: 'Of course not, Mr President. At a period of history
when the "German" Emperor Karl V vowed that he would talk
German only to his horse, at a time -when the nobility and intellectual
circles of Germany wrote only T,atm and were ashamed of their
mother tongue, Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius invented and spread
the use of old Bulgarian script in my "barbarous" country. . . . During
die preliminary inquiries I spoke with officials, members of the in-
vestigating authority, concerning the Reichstag fire. Those officials
assured me that we Bulgarians were not to be charged with complicity
in that crime. We were to be charged solely in connection with our
false passports, our adopted ngm^ and our incorrect addresses. 1
President: This is new matter. It has not been mentioned in the

248

THE TRIAL

proceedings hitherto and you have no right to raise it at this stage/
Dimitrov: 'Mr President, during that time every circumstance
could have been investigated in order to clear us promptly of any
charge in relation to the fire. The indictment declares . . . (Dimitrov
began to quote from the indictment at some length.)

President : *You must not read the whole of the indictment here. In
any case, the Court is quite familiar with it/

Dimitrov: 'As far as that goes, I must state that three-quarters of
-what the counsel for the prosecution and defence have said, here was
generally notorious long ago. But that fact did not prevent them from
bringing it forward again (laughter in Court). Hdmcr stated that
Dimitrov and van der Lubbe -were together in the Bayernhof
restaurant. Now permit me again to refer to the indictment, which
says: "Although Dimitrov was not caught red-handed on the scene of
the crime, he nevertheless took part in the preparations for the burning
of the Reichstag. He went to Munich in order to supply himself with
an alibi. . . /' That is the basis of this precipitate, this aborted indict-
ment/

itro v not to

IT disrespectfully to the indictment.]
Dimitrov: 'Very well, Mr President, I shall choose other ex-
pressions/

President : 'In any case you must not use such disrespectful terms.'
Dimitrov: 'Goring declared before the Court that the German
Communist Party -was compelled to incite the masses and to under-
take some violent adventure when Hitler came to power. . . . He
stated that the Communist Party had for years been appealing to the
masses against the National Socialist Party and that when t^* e latter
attained power the Communists had no alternative but to do some-
thing iTnmft^ifliyly or not at all The Public Prosecutor attempted more
clearly and ingeniously to formulate this hypothesis/

President : I cannot permit you to insult the Supreme Court. 9
Dimitrov: 'The statement which GSring as chief prosecutor made,
was developed by the Public Prosecutor in this Court

And now Dimitrov really set to work. In particular, he
developed the view that the Communist Party could confidently
look forward to the speedy collapse of the Hitler Government, and
that the glorious example of the Russian revolution was an
example to be followed by all mankind.

'. . . What is the Comniunist International? Permit me to quote from
its programme:

"Ine Communist International, an international association of

249

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

workers, is the association of the Communist Parties of individual
lands ; it is a united wodd Communist Party ..."

*. . . A copy of the appeal of the Executive Committee of the
Communist International was found in my possession, I take it that I
may read from it/

Dimitrov then read the appeal, and stressed that it made no
mention of any immediate struggle for power. He went on to
argue:

'The point is simply this: was an armed insurrection aimed at the
seizure of power actually planned to take place on February 27th,
1933, in connection with the Reichstag fire?

'What, Your Honours, have been the results of the legal in-
vestigation? The legend that the Reichstag fire was a Communist act
has been completely shattered. Unlike some counsel here, I shall not
quote much of the evidence. To any person of normal intelligence at
least this point is now made completely dear, that the Reichstag fire
had nothing whatever to do with any activity of the German Com-
munist Party, not only nothing to do with an insurrection, but nothing
to do with a strike, a demonstration, or anything of that nature. The
Reichstag fire was not regarded by anybody I exclude criminals and
frViff mentally deranged as the signal for insurrection. No one
observed any deed, act, or attempt at insurrection in connection with
the Reichstag fire. The very stories of such things expressly appertain
to a much later date . . . But it was shown mat the Reichstag fire
furnished th^ occasion an A the signal for nrtl^sl-Mnpr th^ most terrific
Campaign of suppression against *n^ German working class.'

When Dr B linger interrupted: 'Not the German working class
but the Communist Party/ Dimitrov quickly retorted that Social
Democratic and Christian Democratic workmen had been
arrested as -well, and went on to say:

The law which was necessary for the proclamation of the state of
emergency was directed against all the other political parties and

groups. It stands in direct organic connection witn the Reichstag fire.'
ck the

President: 'If you attack the German Government, I shall
you of the right to address the Court.'

Dimitrov: '. . . One question has not been in the least elucidated
either by the prosecution or the defending counsel This omission does
not surprise me. For it is a question -which must have given them some
anxiety. I refer to the question of the political situation in Germany in
February, 1933 - a matter which I must perforce deal with now. The

250

THB TRIAL

t , 3t wassuchthata

bitter struggle was taking place within the camp of the "National
Front'*/

President: 'You are again raising matters which I have repeatedly
forbidden you to mention. 9

Dimitrov : *I should like to remind the Court of my application that
Sdbleicher, Brflm'ng, von Papen, Hugenberg and Duesterburg should
be summoned as -witnesses/

President: "The Court rejected the application and you have no
right to refer to it again.*

Dimitrov : 'I know that, and more, I know why 1'

President: 'It is unpleasant for me continually to have to interrupt
your dosing speech, but you must respect my directions. . . . You
have always implied that your sole interest was the Bulgarian political
situation. Your present remarks, however, show that you were also
keenly interested in the political situation in Germany/

Dimitrov: 'Mr President, you are making an accusation against
me. I can only make this reply : that as a Bulgarian revolutionary I am
interested in die revolutionary movement allo ver the world. I am, for
instance, interested in the political situation in South America, and
although I have never been there, I know as much about it as I do of
German politics. That does not mi?n that when a Government build-
ing in South America is burned down, I am the culprit.'

He then proffered his own theory of the part played by van der
Lubbe, which was merely a copy of the Nazi theory, but with the
'link' shifted from Neukolln to Henningsdorf and with a change of
principals:

'Is it not probable that van der Lubbe met someone in Henningsdorf
on February 26th and told kim of his attempts to set fire to the Town
Hall and the Palace? Whereupon the person in question replied that
things such, as those 'were mere child's play, that the burning down of
die Reichstag during the elections would be something real? Is that not
probably die manner in which, through an alliance between political
provocation and political insanity, the Reichstag fire was conceived?
While the representative of political insanity sits today in the dock, the
representative of political provocation has disappeared. Whilst this
tool, van der Lubbe, was carrying out his clumsy attempts at arson in
the corridors and cloakrooms, were not other unknown persons
preparing the conflagration in the Session Chamber and malong use
of me secret inflammable liquid of which Dr Senate has spoken?

'The unknown accomplices made all die preparations for the con-
flagration and then disappeared without a trace. Now diis stupid fool,

251

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

this miserable Faust, is here in the dock, but Mephistopheles has dis-
. The link between van der Lubbe and tne representatives of

[ provocation, the enemies of the working class, was forged in
_- i /

Dimitrov went on to complain that no attempt whatever had
been made to trace the man with whom van der Lubbe passed the
night in Henningsdorf. He further complained that the identity of
the civilian who first reported the fire to the Brandenburg Gate

L revealed:

"The incendiaries were sought where they were not to be found .

As the real incendiaries could not and must not be found, other per-
sons were taken in their stead. 9

President: 1 forbid you to make such statements and I give you
another ten mi""^^ only/

Dimitrov: 1 have the right to lay my own reasoned proposals for
the verdict of the Court. The Public Prosecutor stated that all the
evidence given by Communists was not worthy of credence. I shall
not adopt the contrary view. Thus I shall not declare that all the
evidence given by National Socialist witnesses is unreliable. I shall not
say they are all liars, for I believe that amongst the millions of National
Socialists there are some honest people/

President: *I forbid you to make such ill-intentioned remarks.'

Ordered by the President to conclude, Dimitrov finally pro-
posed the following verdict :

*i. That Torgler, Popov, Tanev and myself be pronounced innocent
and that the indictment be quashed as ill-founded;

*2. That van der Lubbe be declared to be the misused tool of the
fn^rm^g of the working classes ;

'3. That those responsible for the false charges against us be ma^c
criminally liable for them;

'4. That we be compensated for the losses which we have sustained
through this trial, for our wasted time, our damaged health, and for
the sufferings which we have undergone.

4 . . . The elucidation of the Reichstag fire, and the identification of
the real incendiaries is a task which wul fall to the People's Court of
the future proletarian dictatorship . . .'

Since Dimitrov gave no sign that he had any intention of
concluding - the notes which he published subsequently indicate
that he would have gone on for a very long time the President,
whose patience was completely exhausted, adjourned the Court,
and Dimitrov had to be removed by force.

252

THE TRIAL

When the Court returned, Popov and Tanev delivered lengthy
addresses which had to he translated sentence hy sentence. Then it
was Torgler's turn, whose final speech was as brief as it was to the
point. Before he rose at 9 p.m. to adjourn the Court for a week, Dr
Biinger had this to say:

* When I opened the proceedings nearly three months ago, I said that
it was the custom, not only of the German press, but of newspapers
the world over, not to prejudge die issues which this Court has been
called upon to decide. ...

'Unfortunately my remarks have not been fully heeded. The
foreign press has not been alone in attempting to anticipate these
proceedings in a manner which does no credit to its noble calling. I can
only repeat, once again, that the dash of opinions cannot itifhipn/re tV""
Court.

When Dr Biinger admonished 'not only the foreign press* he
was clearly alluding to a recent interview Goring had given to the
Berliner Nachtausgabe. In it Goring had complained that the
Supreme Court trial was a great disappointment to *h<* German
people, when it c^m^ to ^^aling with vile poHtical criminals, it was
simply not good enough to keep to the letter of the law. Goring
haa added that the authority of the state and the safety of Germany
would be TmfJgrmfnefl if this lengthy trial were allowed to con-
tinue much longer. 41

Goring's outburst presented the judges with a terrible dilemma.
How could they possibly satisfy the irate new rulers of Germany,
and yet let it appear that justice was not being flouted too flagrantly?
After nine long months of collecting depositions and testimonies,
could they now admit that they had been quite unable to form any
kind of reasonable picture of the real course of events on that icy
night of 27 February?

The result was a blatant compromise, so blatant, in fact, that only
because no one at the time was interested in the plain truth, could it
be put forward at alL

12. The Experts

TWO FIRE EXPERTS

ONCE the Court had made up its mind to disbelieve van der
Lubbe, it was willy-nilly driven into the arms of the so-called 'fire-
experts .

When the Public Prosecutor began to bore his way through the
mountain of papers which the Examining Magistrate had be-
queathed to him, he discovered to his dismay that no two of Dr
Vogt's experts had agreed on the origins or the development of the
Reichstag fire. To make things worse, each of the experts had tried
to reconcile his particular opinion with the incompatible statements
of various prosecution witnesses.

When Professor Emil Josse, a lecturer on thermodynamics at the
Berlin Technical College, produced his opinion in May, he became
the first of a series of experts who hid their profound ignorance of
the facts behind a barrage of words. What had 'strode Trim so
particularly* was the 'explosive disintegration of the Session
Chamber', from which he concluded :

Had there been no explosion or rather had the Session Chamber not
been filled with an explosive mixture of gases, the small fires could
quickly have been extinguished by the fire brigade -just as they were
in the restaurant - so that the damage would have remained relatively

One week later, Fire Director Wagner, Chief of the Berlin Fire
Brigade, came out with quite a different view when he said :

If we bear in mind the special conditions prevailing in the Chamber,
we shall find that the development of the fire, as the witnesses have
described it, fits in perfectly with our experience of the development
of fires in general During the three minutes imd^f discussion, from
9.18 to 9.21 p.m. that is, there was still quite enough oxygen in the
large chamber to allow for complete and smokeless comoustion . . .

Professor Josse, who remained firmly convinced that the whole
fire had been carefully planned, kept cudgelling his brain as to why

254

THE TRIAL

the incendiaries should have bothered to set fire to the restaurant,
thus 'giving the whole game away*. He concluded that there were
two possibilities:

i. The restaurant was set on fire at random, which seems unlikely in
view of there having been a complete plan, and which could only have
happened had van der Lubbe started me fire by himsdor

2. The incendiaries hoped that, by starting the fire in the restaurant,
they would obtain particularly quick results an<l wr^aV ima-gitrmm
havoc, so much so that they decided to run the risk ofbeing discovered.

Professor Josse thought the key to this mystery was an *extra f
ventilator, However:

'If we postulate that, by starting the fire in the restaurant, the incen-
diaries hoped to take advantage of the

ventilator, then we must also postulate that an unforeseen circum-
stance led to a change in the plan since . . . the additional ventilator
was apparently not working . . .'

Only Lewis Carroll could have thought up a more preposterous
argument than that, or, for that matter, than the one with whichDr
Josse came out on 23 October 1933 : 'The main purpose of starting
the fire outside the Session Chamber was to divert attention from
the latter/

This was too much even for the Public Prosecutor who pointed
out that had the restaurant not been fired, the fire in the Session
Chamber might not have been discovered until very much later.

Professor Josse was also the first to propound the theory that the
incendiary material had been smuggled into the Reichstag long
before the fire, and that it had been stored in the stenographers
wdL That was also the view ofDr Schatz.

Imagine, then, the surprise of these two great experts and the dis-
- of all those others who believed in their simple

j to bottom on die afternoon of the fire, that it had been

r Uy inspected by Scranowitz, and that the liffananPraedrich,

who had wound up the dock there at 4 p.m. had seen nothing
suspicious. 1

After Professor Josse had finished giving his evidence, the
President addressed the following remarks to van der Lubbe:

'Raise your head, van der Lubbe. Did you understand what has been
said here? The expert, who is a learned professor, has told us that you

355

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

could not have fired the Reichstag all by yourself Who helped you?
Answer me that!'

But Maiinus van der Lubbe had long ago decided not to enter
into any further useless and senseless discussions. He kept silent.

Afraid that van der Lubbe might have had no Nazi accomplices
after all, Dimitrov put the following question to Professor Josse :

'Is it at all possible that van der Lubbe could have laid the fire trail
within a quarter of an hour, or that he himself could have started the
fire in the Session Chamber?*

To Dimitrov's disappointment, Professor Josse replied without
any hesitation:

1 have reflected on this question at length. For a time I believed that he
could not have done so ; but when, during the on-site inspection, I saw
the speed with which Lubbe crashed through the -windows and was
told that he was in a lather of sweat when he was arrested, I came to the
conclusion that he might have done it with adequate preparation.' 8

When Dr Teichert, the Bulgarians' counsel, next asked Josse
what van der Lubbe had done with the containers of the 50 IDS of
liquid fuel with which, according; to the Professor, he had started
the fire (the debris had been searched immediately after the fire and
no traces of any such containers had been found), Dr Josse was at a
loss for an answer. Nor, as Professor Urbain of the Sorbonne
rightly objected, could he tell on what scientific data he had based
his estimate of 50 Ibs. Professor Urbain also attacked Josse and
particularly Dr Schatz for putting forward the view that

. . . the Session Chamber was set on fire by means of a liquid hydro-
carbon, . . . Tables and chairs were covered with rags soaked in petrol

or paraffin The raS were thm sprinlclgd with a sftj-ignjtiti

or joined to one another by means or fuses or celluloid strips, pr
the latter.

As Professor Urbain pointed out, petrol and paraffin do not
produce the kind of flames all the witnesses had described. Fire
Director Wagner added the view that no volatile liquids could have
been used, since otherwise all the rags -would nave flared up
simultaneously. In that case, no separate bundles of flames would
have been produced or observed. According to Wagner, experi-
ments in toe Reichstag had shown that a large number of separate

256

THE TRIAL

fires could not have been started with reels of celluloid film, or with
petrol and paraffin.

Dr Ritter, a Governrnmt technical officer, agreed "with Wagner :

It seems unlikely that mineral oils, for instance petrol, were used to
start the fire. During the lengthy ^preparations a large part of the petrol
would have evaporated, later to Be precipitated as heavy vapour. Had
the incendiary tried to run a fuse through, that vapour, Sanies would
quickly have spread over the entire incendiary system, possibly with
explosive effects.

With commendable honesty Dr Ritter concluded :

On the available evidence it is quite impossible to decide how the fire
in thr Session Chamber was started.

No wonder he was dropped out of the experts' and the Court's
further deliberation.

On 23 October 1933, when Professor Josse, Dr Wagner and Dr
Schatz were cross-examined in open Court, the public was
astonished to learn how radically they differed on even the most
elementary questions. As a Dutch newspaper put it at the time:

This has been a very important day, for it has shown how shaky are
th^ foundations 'which these experts have erected.

Being poets and dreamers, they do not try to justify their respective
theories with facts, but simply produce die theories and leave it
to the Court and the prosecution to do the rest. They keep shooting
arrows into the blue, and if mistakes occur- well, van der Lubbe must
have rna^ them, for compared with these gentlemen, he is a mere
tyro when it comes to starting fires. They are all agreed that he could

tint Via w rlrm^ i* Ky hinwlf. For tlig rpst they keg to Ajfer. But that is

their privilege- they are the experts, after alL 8

DR SCHATZ

Chemical discussions in Court paved the way for the appearance
of that remarkable chemical expert, Dr Wilhebn Schatz, the man
whose astonishing performance, mental acrobatics, and sleights of
TviTVclp left an indeuDle impression on all who watched him.

At the time, Dr Schatz was Head of the ^Private Institute for
Scientific Criminology*. He was an extremely busy and versatile
man: a court-expert on chemistry, fingerprints, type, a graph-
ologist, a pharmacist, a food expert, a botanist, a lexicologist, and

257

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

a scientific criminologist - in short, a Jack-of-all-trades. Another
remarkable thing about him was that he usually wrote his opinions
on the inside of used envelopes or on the backs of old letters, all of
which he hid from his assistants and collaborators with a great show
of secretiveness.

Despite - or perhaps because of- his great versatility, Dr Schatz
did not enjoy a particularly good nam^ in rhftmiral and scientific
circles. For one thing, his manner was most unprepossessing, for
another he was generally considered to be a pompous and dis-
putatious ass. The highly-respected chemist Dr Briining called him
a fantasy-monger, and the Neue Zurcher Zeitung a 'malicious
expert*. Berlin chemical circles wondered why on earth the Court
should have called in a dubious provincial chemist in the first place,
and there were rumours that he was not a disinterested party. There
certainly was no doubt that Judge Vogt had 'briefed* Dr Schatz
carefully on van der Lubbe's so-called accomplices.

Now, by that time even Judge Vogt had come to appreciate that
Torgler could not have been in the Reichstag at the tinn of the fire.
However, he had apparently been out of his rooms between 7 and
8 p.HL, during which time he might have been 'preparing' the fire,
that is sprinkling petrol or some other inflammable fluid over
curtains, carpets, chairs, etc.

Unfortunately, no one at all could be found who was willing or
able to testify that Torgler had smelt of any of these pungent
substances, nor was Professor Briining able to detect any signs of
such substances having been used. To help Judge Vogt out of the
resulting impasse, Dr Schatz obligingly invented a mysterious
igniting fluid, which Torgler might easily have sprinkled about
between 7 and 8 p.m.

At the request of Dr Sack, Schatz, who had previously told the
Court that he would not mention the name of that mysterious fluid
lest other incendiaries came to hear of it, now descrioed one of its
properties: it smelt strongly of chloroform.

But, alas, no one had noticed Torgler smelling of chloroform
either ; hence Dr Schatz was forced to ask all sorts of silly questions.
On 14 October, for example, he asked Chief Fire Director Gempp
whether the liquid which Gempp alleged he had detected in die
Bismarck Hall, had not smelt like rotten cabbage. Gempp, who
had previously 'smelt* petrol, said he could not remember.

One day before, on 13 October, Dr Schatz had put the following

258

THE TRIAL

question to Lieutenant Latrit: 'You have stated that you saw no
smoke, but that you smelt smoke. Did you notice a peculiar smell
or taste in your mouth or throat?'

"When Lateit said no, Dr Schatz coaxed him with: 'Not at all?*
Again the witness said no, butDr Schatz refused to give up:

Dr. Schatz: "Do you know die amfll given off by a smoky lamp for
instance by an old-fashioned oil lamp ? Was die smell like that?*
Lateit: *No.'

Dr. Schatz: *You testified that your eyes were smarting.'
Lateit: "That was downstairs, when we came in through Portal
Two, and were met by thick smoke. My men were completely

VlinrWI ; niir eyas w -rr smarting an^ si-riming go rnnrh that wAad to

cover our faces with ^^r\f\cf^tf\t^ t 9

Dr. Schatz : *Do you know the smell of die old kind of matches, you
know the ones with phosphorus and sulphur? When you struck th*m t
you got a strange prickling sensation in the nose and a taste resembling
the one you get when you eat eggs with a silver spoon. Did you have
that sensation? 9

Lateit: 'No/

When Patrolman Losigkeit and House-Inspector Scranowitz
corroborated Lateit's evidence, it became obvious that no one at all
had smelt anything in support of Dr Schatz's theory. On the
contrary, Dr Briining's analysis had established that the trail which
Gempp had described was not due to any inflammable or sehv
igniting fluid. Only one witness swore to the theory of the great
expert Dr Schatz. That witness was the expert Dr Schatz himself.

But even he was left with the problem of why Torgler had not
smelt of the miracle-fluid whose odour was supposed to stick to one
for hours. He accordingly had a new inspiration and performed a
secret experiment. The remit was quite astounding:

He explained that though he had rubbed his hands with the self-
inflammatory fluid, two policemen and two Reichstag; officials were
quite unable to detect any smell even when he held his hands very
close to their faces. 4

Suddenly the strong and persistent si" ^11 was no longer ; suddenly
die smell of chloroform and rotten cabbage had evaporated, and
Torgler could remain a suspect.

Then Dr Schatz produced his second bombshell : van der Lubbe
had never even set toot in the Session Chamber; the Chamber was

259

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

fired by his accomplices. Asked by Dr Sack how these accomplices
had managed to get in and out of the Reichstag, the great expert
replied that he preferred to keep his own counsel on that subject
since, after all, he was merely a scientific expert.

When Torgler thereupon implored Dr Schatz to forgo his
scientific modesty for the sake ot four innocent men, Dr Schatz
could do no better than rehash an old theory: van der Lubbe's
conspicuous behaviour in the restaurant could only have meant that
he was trying to divert attention from his accomplices in the
Chamber.

Douglas Reed has described the conclusion of Dr Schatz's
testimony:

'If I have understood this interesting address aright,* said Dinaitrov
gravely, addressing himself to Dr. Schatz, 'a certain technical ICDLOW-
fedgc must be assumed on die part of persons employing this method

of

The people who deal in these things know what they are about, 9
answered Dr. Schatz.

'And if they are not acquainted with the interior of the Reichstag?*
asked Dimitrov.

'Some knowledge of the place is necessary,* Dr. Schatz replied.

'And when must this seLtagniting liquid have been distributed?*

'At most an hour or two before tne nre,' said Dr. Schatz. 5

And Dr Schatz went on to say that van der Lubbe's accomplices had

'. . . the kind of knowledge which is found only among employees
of chemical concerns and laboratories, pharmacists or pb ar rn ? fMiti<^al
assistants.' 6

It seems incredible that Dr Schatz should have been allowed to
develop his unsubstantiated theories without anyone seriously
rnalletigfng him. Not only did these theories imply the utter in-
competence of all the police officers who had checked van der
Lubbe*s movements, but they also ran counter to all the other
evidence.

On 15 October 1933, for instance, the upholsterer Otto
Borchardt had testified that a piece of materfcl adhering to van
der Lubbe's coat came from a curtain behind the stenographers'
table.

But why should Dr Schatz have worried about such trifles when
he was not only helping the German authorities, but was also

260

THE TRIAL

attracting the attention of the rest of the world? For the inter-
national press, too, -was humming with the name of Dr Schatz and
Vife mysterious 'self-igniting liquid'.

On 23 October 1933, Dr Schatz demonstrated his liquid to the
Court during a special session from, which the public was excluded.
And lo ! the liquid did burst into flames, though, not after an hour,
as Dr Schatz Had predicted in order to 'explain* Torgier's absence
between 7 and 8 p.m., but after eight minutes. However, the
mere fact that the mixture had burst into flames at all so impressed
the Court that it took the rest on trust.

Only one voice protested - that of Georges Urbain, the irre-
pressible Professor of Chemistry at the Sorbonne:

'What are we to think of someone who postulates that the accused,
.none of whom are chemists or trained in laboratory techniques, should
have succeeded in performing an experiment in the Session Chamber
where they were pressed for time, and probably afraid of being
caught, which he, the acknowledged chemical expert, could not
perform successfully under far more favourable conditions? 9

Luckily for Torgler, no amount of juggling with the facts helped
Schatz to pin the blame on him, for Dr Sack had established
Torgler's innocence beyond the shadow of a doubt. What Schatz
did succeed in doing was to seal van der Lubbe's fete. For since van
der Lubbe could not describe the mysterious ingredients for the
secret fluid, it 'followed* that these were handed to him by his
principals and that he was one of a highly organized gang of
insurrectionists.

No other Court would have listened to an expert whose every
statement was so blatantly refuted by the facts.* Moreover, if van
der Lubbe had, in fact, had Communist accomplices who carried
the liquid into the Reichstag, why did he refuse to do an essential
part of his job, Le. blame toe fire on the Nazis? Was not van der
Lubbe's obstinate insistence that he started all the fires by himself
proof positive ofhis complete veracity?

As Dr Seuflfert, Douglas Reed and Mr Justice de Jongh among
others realized at the time, van der Lubbe fidled to <nfess anything
simply because he had nothing to confess. Moreover, had a sdt-
igniting liquid been used, van der Lubbe would not have been
Dr Schatz was also called to give evidence as a grapliological 'expert'. He

261

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

needed at all - why divert attention from accomplices who had
finished their work long before?

Douglas Reed expressed his complete bewilderment in the
following words:

Van der Lubbe's part, then, was, at the most, to touch off the fire;
possibly not even that. What function remained for this enigmatic
figure with the sunken head than that of a scapegoat, a dupe, a cat's-
paw, a tool, a whipping boy for others? Why the spectacular entrance
from outside, the crashing glass, the waving fire-brands, the crazy dash
through the rooms beneath the restaurant, with their windows facing
the KOnigsplatz? . . . How was van der Lubbe brought, or prompted,
or induced to enter the Reichstag at the vital moment, and to remain
there to be taken? Did he know who prompted him and why did he
not say? As far as this, the fundamental issue, was concerned, the
evidence brought no enlightenment whatever; the world was
confirmed in its opinion that van der Lubbe was the tool of others, but
was further than ever from the truth about them. 7

WAS THE REICHSTAG FIRE REALLY
MYSTERIOUS?

When Dimitrov, in the course of his fi^al speech, said :

Whilst this fool, van der Lubbe, was carrying out his clumsy attempts
at arson in the corridors and cloakrooms, were not other unknown
persons preparing the conflagration in the Session Chamber and
malcing use of the secret iirfla-mmafrl^ liquid of which Dr Schatz here
spoke?

van der Lubbe could no longer contain himself. He suddenly burst
into laughter.

He laughed almost soundlessly but with such lack of self-control that
his whole body was shaking and he almost fell off the bench. Once
again everybody gaped at him. His whole face was distorted into a
grin.

One wonders what sort of a man he really is, and if he will still be
laughing up his sleeve when they lead hi and his secret to the
scaffold.

In fact, Marinus van der Lubbe was not laughing up his sleeve
at all ; he was laughing because he could not help himself. He must
have used a great deal of self-control during Dimitrov's wild
speculations, starting with the unknown man in Hennigsdorf

262

THE TRIAL

who aUegedly asked van der Lubbe : * Why such a small fire? I'll be
able to put you on to something really big/ and ending with this
ridiculous self-igniting liquid, and it was only a question of time
before he would erupt into helpless laughter.

As early as 9 March 1933, Dr August Bruning, the highly
respected director of the Prussian Institute for Food, Drugs and
Forensic Chemistry, had corroborated van der Lubbe's testimony.
At the request of the police, Le. long before the whole business was
turned into a political issue, Dr Bruning had gone to the scene of
the crime, where he carried out a most careful examination and
found ' no evidence that such substances as petrol, paraffin or
methylated spirits had been used. 9

The Professor had gone on to say that what traces of extraneous
combustible substances he could discover, were all explicable in
terms of firelighters or drippings from firemen's torches.

Having identified the mysterious 'incendiary substance* with
van der Lubbe's humble firelighters, Dr Bruning - like Dr Rittcr -
was, of course, dropped by Judge Vogt.

Now these firelighters did, in fact, have a considerable power of
destruction. Thus van der Lubbe used them to set the snow-
covered roof of the Neukolln Welfare Office ablaze, to cause a fire
in the Town Hall and another one on the roof of the Palace, where -
as Dr Hunger confirmed - a massive window frame was set alight
by half a packet of firelighters.

Moreover, the same fighters could easily have set fire to that
crucial bit of evidence - the curtain in the western corridor whose
alleged flame-resistance Dr Schatz had 'proved*. This proo which
was an essmtfal link in the accomplice theory, shows bettor than
anything else what manner of scientist the Director of the 'Private
Institute for Scientific Criminology* really was. It took a quarter of
a century - to be precise until 26 January 1957 - before the mystery
of this curtain "which was flame-resistant and yet burst into flames
was solved : during a conversation Judge Vogt let it slip out that Dr
Schatz had performed bis experiments not with the actual curtains,
but with remnants that had been stored away in heavy chests.

Now, if one could not expect Judge Vogt to know that fire-
resistant treatment by impregnation wears off after years, let alone
after decides, of use, one could certainly have expected this know-
ledge from a fire expert. In particular, Dr Schatz ought to have

263

THB REICHSTAG FIRE

known that if pieces of curtain, which had been kept in ]_
air-tight chests where their original impregnation was preserved,
did not burn, that did notMnean tha actual curtains would behave in
the same way. For Dr Schatz ought to have been familiar with the
decree passed by the Berlin Police President on 5 June 1928,
stipulating that die impregnations of all theatre curtains must be
checked yearly and, if necessary, renewed. The reason for this
decree was quite simple: experience had shown that such materials
as velvet, velour, baize, or plush, in particular, gradually lose their
fire-resistance through the unavoidable accumulation of dust,
constant changes of temperature and humidity, and finally through
natural deterioration. Now, the Reichstag curtains, as the Director
of the Reichstag, Geheimrat Galle, told me chemist Dr Lepsius on
the day after the fire, had been hanging undisturbed for decades.
No -wonder, therefore, that they caught fire so quickly and so
easily.

On 4 October 1933, Dr Sack - a lone voice in the wilderness -
objected that the expert opinions '. . . are faulted because the
experiments were not carried out under the original conditions/ 9

Needless to say, this objection was overruled.

We shake our neads when we read to what lengths Fire Director
Wagner went in his vain attempts to set fire to massive chairs and
desks with firelighters, petrol and filmstrips, while forgetting that
only a full reconstruction of the original conditions could produce
conclusive results. We know that van der Lubbe did not start the
fire in the Chamber by burning an odd chair or an odd desk; what
he did was to set fire to the curtains over the tribune, whence the

fireleapt across to the tejMstTies and pan piling Tvh jjtyl t As q r^mlt, SO

much heat was generated that the glass ceiling cracked in a number
of places, and a tremendous updraught was created. Moreover, the
wooden walls needed no special preparation to catch fire, for, as

fire: *The desiccated old panelling offered the fire excellent food,
and that is the reason why the fire spread so quickly in the Session
Chamber/"

But it was not only the relative fire-resistance of the chairs in the
Session Chamber wnich confused Professor Josse and Dr Schatz;
what misled them even more was the difference between the
development of the fire in the restaurant and the one in the
Chamber. From the fact that the former was easily extinguished,

264

THE TRIAL

and the latter was not, they conducted that die two could not have
been started in the same -way.

This thesis seemed highly plausible to Dimitrov and the Public
Prosecutor, both of whom were looking for accomplices, albeit of
different shades of political opinion. And yet the majn difference
between the two fires was the difference in updraught, as anyone
who knew anything about fires ought to have realized at once.

We need only recall the fire which destroyed the imposing
Vienna Stock Exchange on Friday, 13 April 1956 :

The fire which, for unexplained reasons, started in the cellar shortly
after midnight, spread like lightning over the rest of the building,
despite desperate attempts by the fire brigade to confine it ... The
flames shot very high into the air and. tarncA AE night airy an nnrarmy
red. Thousands had gathered to witness this horrifying but impressive
spectacle. 11

In Brandschute, the official journal of the Vienna Fire Brigade,
Engineer Priesnitz explained the catastrophic development of the
fire as follows:

The great hall with its inflammable contents [panelling and furniture]
could be compared to a huge oven. Once a firetad started in it and was
not extinguished immediately, the fire was bound to spread with such
speed that every attempt to extinguish it was doomed to utter failure.

The Reichstag, too, blazed up quite suddenly - the moment the
glass ceiling of the Chamber burst. This set up so tremendous an
updraught that one of the firemen - Hre Officer Klotz - had to
ding to the door for fear of being sucked in.

As early as i March 1933, Dr Goebbds gave his own impression
of the fire:

The great Session Chamber is about to cave in. With every hit of
debris, an ocean of fire and sparks shoots 250 ft to the dome, which has
turned into a chimney. 1 *

Engineer Foth of the Berlin Fire Brigade also referred to the
updraught phenomenon at the time:

The glass of theasofidome had burst in places so that the flames could
shoot through the cracks. The result was a considerable updraught
which ... caused the air to be sucked through all the passages into the
burning Chamber. 1 *

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Since no such updraught was created in the restaurant and in
other parts of the Reichstag, it is not surprising that they escaped the
fate or the Chamber.

The ventilation expert, M. J. Reaney, has pointed out that it was
one small spark that destroyed the General Motors factory in
Lavonia, Michigan, a building that was almost exclusively con-
structed of fire-resisting materials. Reaney also explained that it
was a spark from a neighbouring building which completely
destroyed India House in London, a steel and concrete structure, in
1940. The reason was simple: India House contained enough
paper, curtains, and furniture to superheat the air. Now super-
heated air surrounds the fire and dries out everything in its path.
Even at small temperature differences, air may circulate with a
speed of 1,000 ft per minute, but when air is superheated that speed
is greatly increased. That is the reason why a tiny spark may cause
even the largest fires - the concrete shell of a building does not, of
course, burn, but will collapse under the pressure. 14

Ever since Prometheus brought us fire, flames have been man-
kind's most faithful friends and bitterest enemies. With the rise of
cities, fire damage has grown to gigantic proportions, yet the cause
of most fires is usually a mere trifle - a stupid accident, a tiny
omission, one spark, one cigarette end, and a forest, a skyscraper
or an ocean liner is destroyed.

For example, a 1913 survey showed that of 1,200 theatre fires,
thirty-seven per cent were caused by naked flames, twenty-one per
cent by faulty lights, sixteen per cent by faulty heaters, twenty-
three per cent by fireworks, firearms and similar explosive matter,
and three per cent by arson. In no case were highly inflammable
fluids involved, and in most cases, once the fire had started, the
theatres were completely destroyed.

Or take another historical example:

On October idth, 1834, between six and seven o'clock in the evening,
the sky over Westminster turned an exceptionally bright colour.
Fire alarms echoed throughout the south-east of London, while thirlr
red smoke poured out of the front windows of the House of Lords.

Archivists had been burning old records when, quite suddenly, the
Debating Chamber -was on fire. Before help could come, the Lords'
resplendent Hall with all its glorious furniture, was ablaze. Even the
House of Commons was seized by the flames, which spread as far as
Westminster HalL 15

266

THE TRIAL

Another historic fire, in the Tower of London, was discovered
in much the same way as the Reichstag fire:

On October soth, 1841, at about 10.30 p.m., a passer-by noticed a
strong glo w in the Tower. He notified a policeman who fared a shot,
as a result of which the whole garrison was alerted and 5 oo p eople came
^-j T^ j ___r, i i r because of the lack of

water, and partly because the Tower was foil of fabrics. 16

In the case ofParliament, it was ordinary paper which had caused
the conflagration, andno one so much as suggested that self-igniting
liquids, petrol, paraffin, or, for that matter, pitch or resin had been
used. Paper was quite enough to burn the fire-resisting furniture,
and that was that. But then no one was trying to make political
capital out of the London fire.

The Reichstag Session Chamber was set ablaze, not by paper, but
by the old, heavy velvet curtains behind the tribune. From these
musty curtains the fire quickly spread to the richly hung wooden
panelling near it.

As every fireman knows, large fires radiate heat over fairly large
aT vJ diia feet partially explains why t-Vi^ Court * experts*

failed to set light to the same kind of furniture that the actual fire
consumed so quickly.

Firemen also know that the most dangerous fires are those which
start in such vaulted buildings as cinemas, theatres, and - the
Reichstag. Hence the Reichstag fire did not puzzle them at first :

According to the fire office, a ventilation shaft in the Session Chamber
acted as a chimney, sucking the fire upwards and impeding its lateral
development. The roof girders suffered little damage since the panes
burst very quickly, leaving the air free access and the flames free
escape. 17

Had the fire not broken out at a critical point in Germany's
history, the experts would not have been expected to propound
any of their far-fetched theories, or to perform any of their point-
less experiments. They would have simply told the Court - what
every housewife knows in any case - that once you light a fire in a
sto ve with an unobstructed chimney , it will blaze a way until all the
fiiel has been consumed. And that is precisely what happened in the
Reichstag Session Chamber.

267

13- The Verdict

THE VERDICT

ON 23 December 1933, Dr Btinger solemnly read the judgement
of the Supreme Court:

The accused Torgler, Dimitrov, Popov and Tanev are acquitted. The
accused van der Lubbe is found guilty ofhigh treason, insurrectionary
arson and attempted common arson. He is sentenced to death and to
perpetual loss of civic rights.

This verdict was received with satisfaction abroad. The feet that
four of the five accused had been acquitted, not because of their
innocence but merely for lack of evidence against them, was
considered a minor flaw, and van der Lubbe s death sentence
caused only a flicker of revulsion. For there had never been any
question about his guilt; what was in doubt was his sanity.

The National Socialist press, on the other hand, foamed with
rage:

The acquittal of Torgler and the three Bulgarian Communists for
purely formal reasons is, in the popular view, a complete miscarriage
of justice. Had the verdict been rooted in that true law on which the
new Germany is being founded and in the true feeling of the German
people, it would surety have been quite different. But then the entire

nd

in which the trial was conducted, and which the nation has
followed with increasing displeasure, would have been quite different
too. 1

A less prejudiced German paper wrote :

The highest German court has spoken. It has. . . shown the qualities
which the new Germany expects of a 'royal* judge : an unflinching will
to justice, the utmost objectivity in the discovery and assessment of the
facts, complete independence. 2

That view was no less objectionable for, as Erich Kuttner has
rightly pointed out:

The verdict is an abuse oflogic and of reasonable thought. It is not by
the acquittal of four innocent men, but by its specious attempt to

268

THE TRIAL'

prove, despite the acquittal, what could only have been proven by a
verdict of guilty, that we must judge this Court and assess its sub-
servience to the political rulers of the Third Reich. 8

In fact, the judges were paralysed from the moment Hitler ma^
his fateful pronouncement in the blazing Reichstag. In addition,
most German judges were Nationalists, and inclined to side with
the Nazis against the Communists and Social Democrats as a matter
of course. Thus, in 1923, when Adolf Hitler made a seditious
attempt to overthrow the elected Government, and caused the
death of many people, he was merely confined in Landsberg
fortress, from which he was released soon afterwards.

Dr Bunger's Court, too, was no exception to the general rule; it
openly paid homage to the Nazi masters when it declared:

On January soth, 1933, the Reichsprasident expressed his confidence
in Adolf Hitler, the leader of the National Socialist Party, by appoint-
ing him Chancellor ... ^\i$ paving the path for tfr^ building of the
Third Reich and for our political rebirth. ... A wave of confidence
met our FGhrer Adolf Hitler and held out the promise that the new
elections, set down for March 5th, would ensure the overwhelming
success of the National Socialist Party. . . . [Hence there was] not the
slightest reason why the National Socialists should have burned the
Reichstag and blamed the fire on others as a pre-election stunt. Every
German realizes full "well that the mgy> to whom the German nation
owes its salvation from Bolshevik anarchy and who are now leading
Germany towards her rebirth and recuperation, would never have
been capable of such criminal folly. The Court therefore deems it
beneath its dignity to enter into these vile allegations, all of which have
been spread by expatriated rogues, who stand condemned by their
own words. It is sufficient to state that all these lies have been com-
pletely refuted in the course of the trial . . .

TriajgrmirVi as the Court acquitted the accused Communists, it
proved that it stall enjoyed a measure of independence, but inas-
much as it upheld the absurd thesis of Communist complicity, it
showed ho w small that measure really was - dazzled by the national
firework display, the judges turned a blind eye to the most basic
principles of jurisprudence. It was their subservience to Hitler
which constantly forced them to shelter behind such evasions as
'possibly', 'apparently', 'probably', 'presumably', and so on. A
summary of the verdict might have read: Somehow and some-
where, some unknown - but certainly Communist - criminals

269

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

entered the Reichstag with some substance that somehow served to
prepare the Chamber for the fire. Somehow, somewhere, and at
some time, these Communist criminals made contact with van der
Lubbe, and somehow, somewhere and at some time, they dis-
appeared again after the crime was committed.

Though not a single accomplice was run to earth despite all the
efforts ofthe famous German police, and despite the offer of a large
reward, the Court nevertheless found that there could be

... no doubt about the objects which van der Lubbe and his accom-
plices were pursuing, or about the camp in which the criminal's
accomplices and principals must be sought. Their intention was
deadly to give the signal for a Communist rebellion.

And on what evidence did the Court base this conclusion, when
it could not even establish how these accomplices got in and out of
the building? It seems quite incredible but the answer is: On
evidence which the Court itself found hard to swallow, viz. on
Paul Bogun's claim that he saw one ofthe accomplices leave the
Reichstag shortly before or just after 9 p.m. This is what the verdict

. . . While the Court has no reason to distrust the witness Bogun,
and while the Court does not doubt that what Bogun saw outside
Portal Two was the escape of one ofthe accomplices, the Court was
able to satisfy itself that light conditions outside Portal Two were such
that no positive identification ofthe clothing and appearance ofthe
accomplice was possible from -where the witness Bogun stood.

Bogun, who had become the star witness after most ofthe others
had proved such transparent liars, came out rather poorly hjmyjf
when the defence had finished wit

with him, This is now the Neue
Zurcher Zeitung described his appearance in Court:

A barrage of questions fired at the witness by Dr Teichert and Dr
Sack, counsel for the defence, revealed that his evidence is fiill ofloop-
holes and contradictions. His times differ by quarter-hours; mitmty*
are changed into seconds, and vice versa. The witness, who is short-
sighted and wears thick classes, had originally stated that it was too
dark to tell the colour ofthe stranger's hair. Later he alleged that the
stranger had dark hair, just like Popov. Bogun also gave five different
descriptions ofthe stranger's headgear. The stranger's shoes changed
colour; his face and eyebrows only; ~ . . - -

had been confronted with Popov.

270

THE TRIAL

The witness has begun to twist and turn so much that, in his own
interest, one would wish that the floor would swallow him up. Yet all
BoRiin can say is that details do not matter. He even swore on
oato that he had spoken the whole truth. 4

Dimitrov, too, turned his full scorn on Bogun:

German engineers are usually as precise as mathematics. Why, then,
are Bogun's powers of observation so much better three months after
the fire than they were at the time? How does he explain that Popov's
light trousers have become blue? Bogun is not an engineer, he is a
romancer. 6

Another witness, Frau Elfriede Kuesner, who also alleged that
she had seen the 'accomplice' escape from Portal Two, was known
to have entered the National Club at 9 p.m. She therefore had to
time her 'observation* at 8.5 5 p.m., Le. a few minutes before Bogun
did. On top of that, she had watched the 'getaway* from an
extremely poor vantage point, at least 165 feet away from Portal
Two, and against the light.

Now we know that Portal Two had been duly locked by
Wockock, an old and trusted Reichstag servant, because House-
Inspector Scranowitz had to unlock it tor the fire brigade. More-
over, the police had established that the lock had not been tampered
with in any way, and that there were onlv two keys: the one
Wockock had handed to Wendt in Portal Five, and the other
which was kept in a locked cupboard in Scranowitz's (locked)
office.

In other words, some of the accomplices would have had to steal
Wendt's key, race from Portal Five to Portal Two, unlock and
lock the door to allow their friends to escape, race back to Portal
Five to return the key, thus wasting much time and risking dis-
covery, when all of them could have escaped by the mysterious and
undetectable route by which they had allegedly come in.

All these strange facts did not apparently worry the Court, nor,
for that matter, did the discrepancy between the evidence of the
witnesses Bogun and Kuesner, or the internal contradictions in
Bogun's own evidence. For Bogun had presented the Court with a
much-needed accomplice, and the Court was determined to hang
on to his gift through thick and thin. All that remained to be done
was to ling the accomplice to van der Lubbe, and linked to him he
-was:

271

THB REICHSTAG FIRE

The very fact that he [van der Lubbe] betook himself to Neukdlln, the
Communist stronghold, is extremely suggestive. His conversations
outside the Welfare Office, at SchlafEke's and at Starker's are equally
suspicious. . . . Even though his demand to be shown to Communist
headquarters was refused, he was nevertheless taken to Neukolln
Communist haunts. ... In the view of the Court, it was here that van
der Lubbe *Ar> contact with Communist circles. The precise nature
of these contacts, their subsequent effects, and their precise relevance
to van der Lubbe' s participation in the crime could not be established.
However, that the crime was preceded by other actions than lonely
walks through the streets of Berlin, sudden unmotivated decisions,
and the purchase of a few firelighters, is proved by the obstinate silence
which tike accused van der Lubbe maintain^ even during the pre-
liminary examination, on the subject of his movements on February
23rd and 24th, and from February 27th until the time of the fire. Un-
doubtedly it was during these times that the preparations were
Tpa^. . . . Although die details of these preparations remain unknown,
all the evidence points to the fact that van der Lubbe's accomplices are
to be found in the ranks of the German Communist Party. In this
respect it is not without interest that Hennigsdorf . . . was an industrial
town with a Communist majority, and that it was here that van der
Lubbe was seen in the company of known Communists and with the
sister of a Communist leader . . .

And this compilation of idle speculations and bad logic was the
basis on which tne highest German Court decided the fate of van
der Lubbe ! But then the Court needed these crutches, for without
them, it could never have sentenced van der Lubbe to death - not
even as a favour to Hitler.

The Court's remarkable arguments about van der Lubbe's
movements were followed by no less remarkable arguments about
the fire itsel When all was said and done, the allegation that van
der Lubbe could not have started the gigantic fire with mere fire-
lighters stood and fell by the fire-resistance of the curtains in the
Session Chamber. Now the verdict declared all Reichstag curtains
fire-resistant, even those which had caught fire easily during the
experiments. The reason was simple : the idea that the curtains were
fire-resistant had been so widely adopted, that Dr Schatz thought it
best not to confuse the issue witk fine academic distinctions. Hence,
when the witnesses, Thaler, Buwcrt, Freudeniberg and Kuhl all
testified how quickly the restaurant curtains had burned, Dr
Schatz alleged that these curtains, too, must have kern soalrpfji" *">

272

THE TRIAL

famous liquid. Now, since the Court had established that van der
Lubbe was the only person who could have 'prepared* the re-
staurant, he must somehow have procured a bottle or can of the
mysterious substance between 2 p.m., when the witness Schmal
saw him without a container, and 9 p.m., when he was seen break-
ing into the Reichstag. Moreover, he must have carried the large
container (Dr Sdbatz spoke of one gallon of liquid) on his person
while scaling the Reichstag wall, jumping over the parapet,
kicking in the thick panes, lighting the first fird^hters in the wind -
the first five matches were blown out - and then rlimlimg in
through the broken window. Even Dr Schatz realized that to do all
this van der Lubbe had to have both hands free, and he accordingly
'invented' a large container that could fit into an overcoat pocket.
Needless to say, no traces of such a container were ever discovered.
Even so, the Court found that

Dr. Schatz's examination of van der Lubbe's charred coat has proved
conclusively that the accused van der Lubbe carried the inflammable
liquid on his person. The coat pocket had a dear burn-mark running
inwards, and chemical investigations of the pocket revealed the
presence of phosphorus and carbon sulphide in different stages of
oxidization together with traces of hydrated phosphoric acid and
hydrated sulphuric acid.

Moreover, whereas Lateit had testified that he saw the curtains
burning from the bottom to the top, as they would have done had
they been lit with firelighters, the Court preferred Dr Schatz's
speculations on the subject:

Both curtains burned diagonally from the JTF"^* top to tl 1 ^ outside
bottom. This fact is further evidence in favour of Dr Schatz's opinion
that the curtains had been sprinkled with liquid.

According to the verdict, therefore, van der Lubbe not only
sprinted through the Reichstag in record time, lighting fire-
lighters, tablecloths, papers, shirts, and other pieces of clothing, but
he also spent much additional time sprinkling curtains, carpets, etc.

It seems reasonable to assume that van der Lubbe shed his clothes.. .
not, as he alleged, in order to supplement his supply of lighters, but
simply because, as a result of contact with the self-igniting liquid, they
had themselves caught fire.

Yet this dangerous liquid, which had allegedly consumed
massive oak furniture in a matter of seconds, was unable to

273

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

destroy van der Lubbe's poor coat, remnants of which Dr Schatz
had therefore been able to submit to his far-reaching examinations.
In any case, it seems odd that neither van der Lubbe's hands nor his
trousers and shoes showed the slightest burn-marks.

At first, Dr Schatz had argued that the inflammable liquid had
been smuggled into the Reichstag well in advance. However, the
trial soon showed that this view could not be maintained. The rime
available for preparing the fire kept shrinking until the Court had to
face the remarkable fact that even the Session Chamber must have
been 'prepared* immediately before the fire. For a brief moment, it
looked very much as if the Court -would have to believe van
der Lubbe's story after all, and it was at this point that Dr Schatz
came to the rescue with his self-igniting substance. He explained
that it was merely in order to give this substance time to work that
van der Lubbe had drawn attention to himself in the restaurant.

The Court offered no explanation of how the container or con-
tainers of the liquid had disappeared without trace. Moreover,
whereas the Public Prosecutor admitted that there was no evidence
to show that such, inflammable liquids as paraffin, petrol, benzol or
ether had ever been used, the Court preferred to listen to Dr Schatz
once again:

Since the soot in the ventilators and underneath both the Speaker's
ffriair an^ also the Table of *W House contained simultaneously
residual naphthalene and mineral oil, it seems likely that the [selt-
igniting] liquid and the sawdust-and-naphthalene firelighters were
used in conjunction with petrol or benzoL

Again, whereas the Indictment had stressed that Professor
Briining*s examination of the alleged 'fluid trail 9 in the Bismarck
Hall had revealed no trace of an inflammable liquid, the Court (and
Dr Schatz) believed that:

It seems likely that the accomplice or the accomplices, having per-
formed their allotted task in the Session Chamber, used the remaining
liquid for firing the curtains in the western corridor, the southern
corridor and the Bismarck Hall, on the carpet of which the i
left a clear trail of fluid which, according to thft ghfwnrol

by the expert, Dr Schatz, consisted not only of mineral oil, but also
of self-igniting liquid.

In other words, the Court saw no need for having the con^
tradictory opinions of two of its experts checked by a third one. It

274

THE TRIAL

sided with a provincial chemist against a scientist of international
renown.

Now, had a highly inflammable liquid been used in fact, the fire
would have spread like lightning over the entire liquid-soaked
area, leaving a great deal of soot, when all the eyewitnesses were
agreed that the flames looked steady and that there was no m-
ordinate amount of soot.

How blindly the judges followed Dr Schatz is best shown by
their argument that the self-igniting fluid caught fire at a pre-
determined moment. The reader will remember that even the
great Dr Schatz was quite unable to fix that interval under
laboratory conditions ; how likely is it, then, that van der Lubbe's
alleged accomplices should have been able to compound the
mixture with so much greater precision?

Moreover, while agreeing that van der Lubbe himself was
carrying the fatal liquid on him, the Court nevertheless found that
lie could not possibly have burned the Chamber :

Fully refuted is van der Lubbe's allegation that he himself started the
fire in the Chamber . . .

In any case, there was no need for van der Lubbe to have fired the
Chamber with firebrands, etc., when the Chamber had been prepared
beforehand with the self-igniting substance . . .

The part which the accused van der Lubbe was apparently expected
to play was to deflect attention from his accomplices. ... In the
opinion of the Court, this is borne out by his conspicuous waving of a
firebrand outside the restaurant window, for such behaviour is quite
incompatible with common arson. . . . Infact, van der Lubbe's accom-
plices or principals did achieve their object, for though they ran the
risk of discovery, they did manage to divert the fire brigade from the
main fire. ... It was also in order to divert the fire brigade from the
mfriTi fire that van der Lubbe laid a blazing trail through the
corridors. . .

And the only basis for all these 'findings' was the rich fantasy of
Dr Schatz. For if, as the Court claimed, van der Lubbe did not even
set foot in the Chamber, how was it that he was able to lead the
detectives straight there on the very next day? And what must we
tliiTilc of a Court which finds that 'the detectives were originally
convinced that van der Lubbe fired the Reichstag by himself when
neither (Heisig or Zirpins) had changed their original views in the
slightest?

275

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Even the fact that van der Lubbe chose 9 p.m. as the best time to
climb into the Reichstag was twisted into an argument supporting
the accomplice theory, for at that time the Reichstag was ostensibly
deserted. In feet, had the Reichstag postman not accidentally
started on his round a few minutes before his normal time, he would
certainly have spotted any 'accomplices' that might have been at
work.

Having made the most of Dr Schatz's fantastic gifts, and having
twisted the facts to exhaustion, the Court easily arrived at the truly
amazing conclusion that :

It has been established that van der Lubbe's accomplices must be
sought in the ranks of the Communist Party, that Communism is
therefore guilty of the Reichstag fire, that the German people stood in
the early part of the year 1933 on the brink of chaos into which the
Communists sought to lead them, and that the German people were
saved at the last moment.

In sentencing van der Lubbe to death for insurrectionary arson,
the Leipzig Court ignored two legal maxims, without either of
which justice becomes a mere sham : in dubio pro reo (the accused has
the benefit of the doubt) and nulla poena sine lege (no punishment
without law}. To put it more plainly, when the Court convicted
van der Lubbe of complicity in a non-existing plot and sentenced
him to death for a non-capital offence, it chose political expediency
and deliberately jettisoned the law.

THE MYSTERY OF VAN DER LUBBE

According to the French Ambassador, Fransois-Poncet, van der
Lubbe was the feeble-minded, mentally deficient, and probably
drugged tool of the real criminals'.

In tact, drugging van der Lubbe would only have made sense had
he, in fact, provided the Nazis with what they needed: the con-
fession that he had acted on behalf of the German Communist
Party. This he steadfastly refused to do.

But if not drugged, why did van der Lubbe, whom Inspector
Heisig had described as being so alert after the fire, appear in Court
speechless, bowed, slavering, with a running nose and, in general,
wretched-looking?

Part of the answer was given by Kugler who wrote: *It is quite

276

THE TRIAL

possible that, having been kept in shackles for seven long months,
the twenty-four-year-old van der Lubbc . . . was so exhausted
that he had a nervous breakdown.' 8

And it should not require too much imagination to realize tie
effects of a form of inhuman torture which had driven tough Tanev
to attempt suicide and Dimitrov to the limits of his endurance. Van
der Lubbe, unlike the other accused, had not a single friend, and
was thus a singularly defenceless butt of Judge Vogt's sadistic
attacks. To make things worse, his intended protest against the
enemies of the working class had helped those very enemies to
power, and his former associates were now calling Mm a Nazi
stooge.

All these facts were mentioned in a medical opinion which two
well-known authorities, Professor Karl Bonhoeffer, of the
Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Berlin, and Professor Jurg
Zutt, now Director of the Neurological Clinic in Frankfurt, sub-
mitted to the Court at the time.

What had caused Judge Vogt to call in the two psychiatrists as
early as March 193 3 , -was van der Lubbe's decision to go on hunger-
strike. When asked about dais, van der Lubbe told the doctors quite
simply that, though he had been held for three weeks and though
he had done his best to help the authorities, the trial was dragging on
and on and he was trying to hurry things up, not only for his own
sake but also for the sake of his innocent fellow-sufferers, Torgler
and the Bulgarians. He also volunteered the information that he
had found hunger-strikes most effective with the Dutch authorities.

Now, if three weeks was too long for him, how must he have
felt after another forty-four weeks, for twenty-nine of which he
was kept in chains day and night? In any case, the two psychiatrists,

- . * _-_ 5. " - ft .

r nir

far from considering nfm an imbecile, fou

... an individual who knows what he wants and who tries to say -what
has to be said and no more. . . . [Because of his eye injury] he gives the
impression of staring into space at tim^a ; in reality, however, he pays
careful attention to what goes on around him. Little seems to escape
his attention.

It did not take van der Lubbe long to find out why the two
psychiatrists had been called in:

He laughed quite naturally, perhaps somewhat arrogantly, the
not impudently. So that was what it was all about ! He had burned 1

277

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Reichstag and now he had gone on hunger-strike, so, obviously, they
all thought he was mad !

When the doctors tried to assess his intelligence with general
knowledge and mathematical questions, he told them that

... he was fir more interested in things he had experienced by him-
self ... He considered religion just one branch of knowledge among
many. . . . When asked what he thought about life after death, he
replied that it was a bourgeois mistake to expect an answer to that
question. Either life continues after death or it does not, and that's that.
Death and the beyond were, after all, no more than concepts, and all
concepts are lodged in our heads ; they only exist when we think about

He was inclined to burst into youthful laughter, especially when he
was asked questions that seemed to be paradoxical, or others which, in
his opinion, complicated simple things quite unnecessarily.

Van der Lubbe f s youthful laughter repeatedly caused observers
to shake their heads at what they could only assume were the antics
of a lunatic. On the very first day of die trial, for instance, van der
Lubbe started shaking with laughter after the pointless Sornewitz-
Brockwitz discussion had been going on for what seemed an
eternity. In great perplexity, Dr Biinger asked him:

'Are you feeling ill or is something the matter with you? You must not
laugh here.*

Dr Werner : "He is shaking with laughter.'

President: 'Lubbe, will you stand up ! What is the meaning of this?
Why are you suddenly laughing when you are normally so serious? Is
it because you find the subject matter of this trial ?m\*mQ or is there
any other reason? Do you think our deliberations are ridiculous?*

Van der Lubbe: 'No/

President: *Do you understand everything? Do you understand this
trial?*

Van der Lubbe: 'No.'

President: 'So it is not the subject matter of this trial which makes
you laugh. What is it then? Why do you laugh? Out with it !*

Vanoer Lubbe : 'Because of the trial'

Presidcnt:*Do you think the trial isajoke?*

Van der Lubbe: 'No.'

President : 'If it is not a joke, then please don't laugh !*

But how could van der Lubbe help laughing when so much
pomp and circumstance was being wasted by the highest Court in

278

THE TRIAL

the land to establish who said what to whom in Sornewitz, a litde
backwater that had absolutely nothing whatever to do with the
Reichstag fire?

Next day, Sornewitz was still on the agenda, and van der Lubbe
was told once again not to laugh.

President: 'Why do you laugh? These matters are of extreme gravity.
I am warning you, van dcr Lubbe !'

A few days later, van der Lubbe burst into laughter once more,
when Tanev replied to the question whether he had known van der
Lubbe : 'where should I have met him? I don't understand a single
word of German. What should I have wanted with him?'

In short, van der Lubbe laughed whenever he was given cause for
laughter. His was a special kind of morbid humour which grew as
he watched the Court's blustering; attempts to obscure tie simple
truth and to manufacture accomplices out of thin air.

In any case, Professors BonhoefFer and Zutt found that
'. . . during all our visits we never saw him laugh unless he saw
something funny in the situation.'

But as the trial dragged on, van der Lubbe's humour began to
wilt visibly. In the end, when he came to realize that these hopeless
old fools in their fine robes were not in the least interested in what
he had to tell them, he stopped smiling and wasting his breath.

When the two doctors asked van der Lubbe why he had set fire
to the Reichstag, he replied that, as the German working class had
done nothing to protest against die Nazis, he had felt it his duty to
Tnalre an individual protest on the"" behalf.

The learned gentlemen confirmed that van der Lubbe could
express himself in reasonably good German, and that he needed no
Dutch interpreter. Moreover, the Court interpreter, J. Meyer-
Collings, told Judge Coenders who had asked mm about van der
Lubbers Dutch: 'It is an odd feet, but van der Lubbe does not talk
like an ordinary Dutch worker; he uses the idiom of educated
people.'

In March 1933, the two medical experts concluded: 'We
found no indications of mental unbalance. Marinus van der Lubbe
strikes us as a most intelligent, strong-willed and self-confident
person . . .', but when they saw him again at tfcetcgiiining of the

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Leipzig trial, they found him a broken man. They described the
results in purely medical terms, and wisely kept their own counsel
on the causes: van dcr Lubbe's strength had been sapped by his
fetters, and his morale undermined by the realization that nothing
he might say to these pompous judges would make die slightest
difference.

In order to kill the story that his transformation was due to drugs,
the Court asked Professor Karl Soedermann, Lecturer in Crimino-
logy at the University of Stockholm, to examine van der Lubbe.
On 28 September 193 3 , Soedermann reported :

I can only say that they treat tim better than they do the other
prisoners, for instance as regards food. The moment he saw me,
Marinus van der Lubbc asked: 'Why are you examining me?" I said:
'Because foreign papers allege that you are being badly treated
here.'

Van der Lubbe laughed and shook his head. I gained the impression
that we could have conversed for hours, and that I would invariably
have received intelligent and logical answers. ... I also asked him u
he V>p<j at any time felt anything strange after ^tfog or Hrinlrmg ^nA
he told me emphatically mat he had not. 7

Professor Soedermann also examined van der Lubbe's body, but
found no marks of ill-usage (e.g. injections) of any kind.

The two German psychiatrists, too, felt compelled to refer to the
drug rumours:

. . . Then there are die many strange 'diagnoses' which no doctor
would accept, but which are repeated by the public and above all by
die suspicious foreign press, viz. that Marinus van der Lubbe has been
hypnotized in prison, and that his odd behaviour is the result of his
having been drugged with scopolamine.

Even if it were feasible that medical men should lend themselves
to such cri rn i TiQ 1 practices, yod even if someone could be kept ^imfcr
hypnosis for weeks and months on end, van der Lubbe's attitude,
behaviour, and intransigence are by no means those of a hypnotized
or drugged subject.

On 20 October 1933, the Court heard the evidence of S. A.
Gruppenfuhrer Wolf von HelldorfE When van der Lubbe was
asked to step forward for the usual confrontation, die President, the
interpreter and counsel tried in vain to make Him look up at the
Nazi. It was only when Hclldorff yelled at him: Tut your head up,

280

THE TRIAL

you ! And jump to it !* that van der Lubbe slowly did as he was told.

Helldorffand bis applauding cohorts in the public gallery now
felt that firmness was all van der Lubbe had needed, and that his
downcast mien had been sham all along. In fact, van der Lubbehad
merely been shaken out of his resigned boredom by the parade-
ground voice of a professional bully.

Helldorff himself must have regretted his courtroom success the
next day, when he read in the foreign press that van der Lubbe had
obviously obeyed the voice of his master, or as the Brown Book put
it: "Had the shrill command penetrated through the mists of van
der Lubbe's memory: had it cleaved the fog in his brain for one
transient second?' 8

The Brown Book even offered a 'scientific explanation' based on
the findings of an 'eminent toxicologist' : 'There is one poisonous
drug with such qualities that comparatively minntr doses will
produce symptoms exactly similar to those produced in van der
Lubbe.'*

In fact, as Professor Zutt had already pointed out, 'there is no
drug that can completely silence a man 9 . Moreover : 'His behaviour
is a natural reaction to his external circumstances. . . . True, he
has grown apathetic, but he often glances up and round, though
without appearing to mo ve his head.

Then, on 13 November 1933, van der Lubbe suddenly 'woke up*
once again, sat upright, and looked attentively at everyone in
Court. More miraculously still, he broke his long silence and
answered all questions that were put to him.

One of his answers caused a sensation in Court, for when die
President asked him whom he had gone to see in Spandau, he burst
out with: 'The Nazis !' However, the excitement quickly subsided
when it appeared that he had merely gone to watch a Nazi demon-
stration.

Van der Lubbe caused an even greater sensation on23 November,
the fbrty-durd day of the trial, when he rose to his feet, raised his
head, and faced the Court.

The judges, startled, gazed across at him. Defending counsel tunned
in their seats and hung on his words. His feflow-prisoners shed the
weariness of two months like a garment and sat forward, straining
their ears to hear what he should say. The public craned its neck. The
few newspaper correspondents who had both followed the trial to
Leipzig and risen early enough to be present at van der Lubbe's

281

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

awafcening-abriefawakeningitwasto

on their own perseverance and thought without compassion of their

absent colleagues. 10

Van der Lubbe explained that he had risen in order to ask a
question. When Dr B linger said he might, the following discussion
ensued:

Van der Lubbe : 'We have had three trials now, the first in Leipzig, the
second in Berlin, and the third in Leipzig again. I should like to know
when the verdict will be pronounced and executed.'

President: 'I can't tell you that yet. It all depends on you, on your
naming your accomplices/

Van der Lubbe : 'But that has all been cleared up. I fired the Reich-
stag by myself and there must be a verdict. The thing has gone on
for eight months and I cannot agree with this at all/

President: "Then tell us who your accomplices were !'
Van der Lubbe : 'My fellow defendants have all admitted that they
had nothing to do with the fire, were not even in the Reichstag, and

did not fire it/

President: 'I have told you repeatedly that the Court cannot accept
your statement that you were alone. You simply must tell us with
whom you did it and who helped you.'

Van der Lubbe : 1 can only repeat that I set fire to the Reichstag all
by mvsel After all, it has been mown during this trial that Dimitrov
and the others were not there. They are in the trial, that is quite true,
but they were not in the Reichstag/

Dr Seuffert: 'And what about Herr Torgler?*

Van der Lubbe : 'He wasn't there either. You (turning to Torgler)
have had to admit yourself that you weren't there. I am the accused

has gone wrong because of all mis syml

Dr "Werner: "What does the accused mean by the term "sym-
bolism"?

DrSeuffert: 'He objects to the Reichstag fire being called a s
Van der Lubbe: 'What sort of deed was it anyway, this Re v
fire? It was a matter often minutes, or at most, a quarter of an hour.
I cHd it all by myself/

And then he poured out his own feelings: what had troubled
him so sorely was the feet that his dignified inquisitors were
apparently determined to spin out their comedy of errors for as
long as they could. He, for one, -would rather die than have this

282

THE TRIAL

sordid farce continue. How could they blame him for delaying the
proceedings by not betraying accomplices he had neverhad?
Though he knew that arguing with these senile old fools was a sheer
waste of time, he tried once again:

Van dcr Lubbe: "The Court does not believe me, but it's true all the

same/

President: 'Have you read the opinions of the experts who say one
man could not have started the fire? 9

Van der Lubbc: 'Yes, I know that is the personal opinion of the
experts. But then, I was there and they were not. I know that I set 1 fire
to the Session Chamber -with my ja

What followed merely shows how right van der Lubbe had been
to save his breath.

President: 'You have confessed to the crime and there is therefore no
argument on that point. But it remains a fact that other persons have
been accused and that the Court must now decide whether or not
these person arc guilty. It would help us greatly if you now admit with
'whom you committed the crime.'

Van der Lubbe: 'I can only admit that I started the fire by myself;
for the rest I cannot agr ee with what this Court is trying to do. I now
demand a verdict. What you are doing is a betrayal of humanity, of
the police, and of the Communist and the National Socialist Party.
All I ask for is a verdict. 9

And when Dimitrov, too, said: 'In my opinion no one person
could have started this complicated fire . . .' Van der Lubbe
interrupted him with: "There is nothing complicated about this
fire. It has quite a simple explanation. What was made of it may be
complicated, but the fire itself was very simple . . /

When the President thereupon suggested that his poor fire-
lighters could not have caused a major conflagration, van der
Lubbe replied: 'In that case, the Session Chamber must have been
far more inflammable than the experts believe/

The Court's persistent blindness was referred to by Mr Justice de
Jongh:

Why does it not enter anyone's head that both the National Socialists
Qtifj the Communists might be innocent, and that the unhappy
Marinus van der Lubbe committed the crime by Twng^lf, or, for that
tin^ffyr^ with antiq/v-ial dements belonging to neither of the two
parties? 11

283

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Another foreign observer to voice his doubts at the time was
Douglas Reed, who wrote:

Attempts from all sides of the court to wrest from van dcr Lubbe the
secret of his accomplices, however, were parried in a manner that
indicated either great cunning or the sincere conviction that he had
none. .. . There remained only two possibilities - that van der Lubbe
had no accomplices or that he did not himself know who they were.
The one man from whom, it had been thought, the secret might yet be
wrested, cither would not yield it or had none to yield, 12

When the death sentence on van der Lubbe was finally pro-
nounced on ^z December 1933, the Dutch Ambassador in Berlin
appealed for clemency, and countless petitions poured into
Germany from all over the world. Mr Justice de Jongh, in adding
his voice, pointed out that with van der Lubbe's execution there
would disappear the last chance of ever solving the mystery of the
Reichstag fire.

On 9 January 1934, when the Public Prosecutor informed van
der Lubbe that his appeal for clemency had been rejected, and that
he was to be beheaded the following morning, van der Lubbe
answered with great composure:

Thank you for telling me; I shall see you tomorrow/

Marinus van dcr Lubbe wrote no farewell letters to relatives or
friends. On 10 January 1934, when he was led out of his cell, he
looked calm and peaceful. A large company had assembled to
witness the last act of an apalling tragedy. President Biingcr and
three of his assistant judges had come, and so had Dr Werner, Dr
Parrisius, Dr Scuffert, the Court interpreter, the prison chaplain,
the governor of the prison, two doctors, and twelve selected
Leipzig citizens. The executioner was dressed in tails, top hat and
white gloves.

The Public Prosecutor explained that the Herr Rcichsprasident
had decided not to exercise his prerogative of clemency, and then
ordered the executioner to do his duty. There were no com-
plications, no tears, no belated confession. A few moments later
Marinus van der Lubbe was dead.

284

Appendix A

THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN
26 April 1933

THE REICHSTAG HRE
L Who was Guilty?

THE CASE AGAINST THE NAZIS

Gcmumy, April.

WHEN Hitler became Chancellor - with von Papen as Vice-
Chancdlor at the end of January, the Nazis and their partners in
office, the Nationalists, had antagonistic ambitions. The Nazis,
above all Captain Goring and Dr Goebbels, wanted absolute and
undivided power. Von Papen, as well as the Nationalist leader, Dr
Hugcnberg, and the President, von Hindenburg, wanted the
Nazis, with, their enormous following, to provide a 'National*
Government with the popular support which was denied to the
Nationalists themselves. The Nazis, in other words, were to share
power with the Nationalists while being denied that preponder-
ance which, by virtue ofbeing by far the biggest party in the Reich,
they considered their due.

The Nationalists, though a very small party, had certain sources
of strength. They represent all that is left of Imperial Germany;
they, and not the Nazis, incarnate old Prussian traditions. They
were supported by a large part of the higher bureaucracy, by the
higher ranks of the Reidiswdhr, by the Stahlhelm, a powerful
conservative league of ex-servicemen, and by President von

ithoritv was still considerable. Nor

were they, in case ofneed, disinclined to negotiate for the support
of the trade unions and even of the Reichsbanner, a strong militant
force (made up chiefly of workmen) whose leaders had developed
certain militarist and nationalist

The Nazis were showing signs of disintegration. The Brown
Shirts were growing mutinous in different parts of the Reich;
several units had to be disbanded, and in the electorate there were
symptoms of waning enthusiasm. Another election might (if

285

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

sufficient time were allowed to lapse) mean a heavy loss of votes.
And would not a movement that haa arisen so rapidly and so high
suffer a correspondingly precipitous decline?

NAZIS AND NATIONALISTS

Thus the Nazis were under a strong compulsion to take a share of
power, lest the time might come when even a share would be
denied to them. Hitler had become Chancellor of the 'Government
of National Concentration* only on condition that there would be
no changes in the Cabinet without the sanction of President
Hindenburg. Thus the Nazis, although in a position of great
influence, achieved nothing comparable with that complete
transformation of the whole economic and social order to which
they and the million^ of their enthusiastic followers had aspired.
Had they respected the terms imposed on Hitler, the disappearance
of those millions would only have been a matter of time. They
were indeed in a trap.

The Nationalists had no particular faith in Hitler's word, which
had been broken more than once before. But they were vigilant,
and on the slightest sign of bad faith they were ready, with the
sanction of the President and the army, to proclaim a military
dictatorship (in which case they could have counted on the support
not only of the Stahlhelm but also of the police, amongst wnom
Socialist influences were still strong). How were the Nazis to get
out of the trap? If there were a general election without loss of time
they might still increase their vote, for Hitler's Chancellorship had
the appearance of almost absolute power without the substance,

the ^n ft yt t& DJJ& <^t*n t^forpfn^^ ot thft reality, it i?vas bound to cool m a
very short time. He therefore demanded a general election at the
earliest possible date. His promise to the President was, it is true,
binding, irrespective of the result of that election. At the same time,
an increase of his already heavy vote could only be welcome.
Indeed, if he obtained an absolute majority, could his promise be
considered binding against the manifest 'will of the people'? Or
would not Hindenburg give way before that 'will' ?

But the chances that he would get such a majority were small,
and as the election campaign developed it seemed probable that
revived enthusiasm was ebbing once again and that the elections
would show a loss in the Hitlerite vote. This would have bound

286

Appendix A

Hitler to his promise and the Nazis permanently to the Nationalists.
It was clear to their more adventurous and ambitious leaders,
Captain Goring and Dr Goebbels, that 'something' must be done
to keep Nazi enthusiasm at its height, indeed to drive it still higher,
and to precipitate a new situation in which Hitler could either be
freed from lus promise or that promise would lose its meaning, The
election campaign promised to be violent, there was a tense
atmosphere, extravagant rumours were abroad. The moment was
favourable to men of imaginative Baring and unscrupulous
ambition.

NOT A SURPRISE

Everyone inclining the correspondents of British, French, and
American newspapers in Berlin - expected 'something 9 - a staged
Communist uprising, a fictitious attempt to murder Hitler, or a
fire. The Reichswehr warned the Communists, through an
intermediary, that they must not allow themselves to be provoked
into any rash, action. On no account must they provide an excuse
for raising an anti-Bolshevik scare.

When on 27 February the Reichstag burst into flames no serious
observer of German affairs was at all surprised. Nevertheless, there
was widespread horror and panic. Many understood the signal well
and fled the country forthwith, fearing to wait until they daould be
arrested or until the frontiers should be dosed. There were work-
men who, with shrewd foresight, at once buried their 'Marxist*
literature. It was the Reichstag fee, not the Chancellorship ofHitler
nor his electoral victory on 5 March, that began the Brown Terror.

The fire was instantaneously attributed to the Communists by
the Government, which at once began to manufacture false
evidence, thereby not inculpating but rather exculpating the
Communists and deepening the suspicion felt by all objective
observers that the real incendiaries were to be found within the
Cabinet itself. Before the tribunal of history it is not the Com-
munists, not the wretched van der Lubbe (their alleged instrument,
whose public execution Hitler has threatened before his guilt has
been proved, before he has even been tried), but the German
Government that is arraigned.

A confidential memorandum on the events leading upto the fire
is circulating in Germany. It is in manuscript, and the Terror makes
any open mention or discussion of it impossible. But it is a serious

287

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

attempt by one in touch with the Nationalist members of the
Cabinet to give a balanced account of these events. In spite of one or
two minor inaccuracies it shows considerable inside knowledge.
While not authoritative in an absolute and final manner, it is at
least a first and a weighty contribution towards solving the riddle
of that fire. The memorandum contains certain allegations of high
interest that will be discussed in the next article.

288

Appendix B

THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN
27 April 1933

THE REICHSTAG FIRE
H. Nazis Guilty?

A NATIONALIST VERSION

Storm Troopers Accused

Gcmiwy 9 April.

THE 'Karl Liebknecht Haus', the headquarters of the Communist
Party, and editorial office of the 'Rote Fahne', had been searched
again and, again by the police, but no incriminating matter fra j bmi
found. The Nationalists were opposed to the suppression of the
Communists, for without the Communist members the Nazis
would have had an absolute majority in the Reichstag. This the
Nationalists wished to avoid at any cost.

But the chief of the Berlin Police, Mclcher, a Nationalist,
resigned under Nazi pressure. He was replaced by Admiral von
Levetzo w, a Nazi. On 24 February the Karl Liebknecht Haus was
again searched* On the 26th the 'Conti f , a Government news
agency, issued a report on the sinister and momentous finds that
were supposed to nave been made 'in subterranean vaults* and
'catacombs' that had long been cleared of everything by the fore-
warned Communists. The report also hinted darkly at plans for a
Bolshevik revolution. The confidential Nationalist

mentioned in the first article describes the annoyance of the
Nationalist members of the Cabinet over die clumsiness and
transparent untruthfulness of this report. They refused to allow the
suppression of the Communist Party.

On 25 February a fire started in the old Imperial Palace. It was
quickly extinguished. The incendiary escaped, leaving a box of
matches and some inflammable matter behind. From various parts
of the country came news - all of it untrue - of arson and outrage
perpetrated by Communists. On the 27th, according to the
the chief Nazi agitators, Hitler, Goring, and

389

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Goebbds, all three of whom are members of the present German
Government, were, 'strangely enough', not touring the country to
address election meetings, although the campaign was at its height,
but were assembled in Berlin 'waiting for their fire 9 .

THE ACCUSATION

The Reichstag is connected with the Speaker's residence by a
subterranean passage. Through this passage, according to the
memorandum, 'the emissaries ofHerr G5ring (the Speaker) entered
the Reichstag'. Each of these emissaries - they wore civilian clothes -
Vent to his assigned place, and in a few minutes sufficient in-
flammable matter was distributed throughout the building' (after
the fire had been quenched several heaps of rags and shavings
soaked in petrol were found unburnt or half-burnt) .

The Storm Troopers then, so the memorandum continues, with-
drew through the passage to the Speaker's residence, put on their
brown uniforms, and made off. They left behind diem in the
Reichstag building Van der Lubbe, who, so as to make sure that the
Communists could be incriminated, had taken the precaution to
have on his person his Dutch passport, a Communist leaflet, several
photographs ofhimself, and what seems to have been the member-
ship card of some Dutch Communist group.

THE OFFICIAL STORY

On the following day, the 28th, the fire was announced by the
official Treussische Pressedienst' as intended to begin the Bolshevik
revolution in Germany, the plans for this revolution having been
discovered amongst 'the hundreds of hundredweights of seditious
matter* found in the 'vaults and catacombs' of the Karl liebknecht
Haus. According to these plans 'Government buildings, museums,
palaces, and essential plant were to be fired', disorders were to be
provoked, terrorist groups were to advance behind screens of
women and children, if possible the women and children of police
officers', there were to be terrorist attacks on private property, and
a 'general civil war' was to commence.

It is peculiar that no preparations for this civil war had been made
by the German Government - there had been time enough, for the
alleged plans had been discovered on the 24th. Whenever there has
been the slightest reason to suspect violent action against the State,
carbines are served out to the police, Government buildings are
specially guarded, and the WiQielmstrasse is patrolled night and

290

APPENDIX B

day. No ^precautions of this kind were taken against the 'general
civil war', not even after the fire in the Imperial Palace.

The 'Angriff '. of whichDr Goebbds is edif or, annonn^ thqt thf

documents found in the Karl Liebknecht Haus would be 'placed
before the public with all speed*. Eight weeks have passed and this
has not been done.

FALSE REPORTS

The full political effects of the Reichstag fibre could not be
achieved merely by the presence of a Communist (with leaflet and
membership card) in the Reichstag building. The Nazis have all
along been bent on the destruction of 'Marxism* as a whole - that is
to say, of Social Democracy as well as Communism. The com-
muniqul of the 'Preussische Pressedienst' therefore added that 'the
Reichstag incendiary has in his confession admitted that he is
connected with the Socialist Party. Through this confession the
united Communist-Socialist front has become a palpable fact/
Since then the Nazi press has repeatedly published false reports that
arms and ammunition have been found hidden in rooms owned by
the Socialist trade unions.

So as to incriminate the Communists still further, it was an-
nounced (in the 'Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung') that their leaders
Torgler and Koenenhad spent several hours in the Reichstag on the
evening of the 27th, and had been seen not only with van der Lubbe
but also with several other persons who were carrying torches,
these persons having eluded arrest by escaping through the passage
to the Speaker's residence. Why did no one telephone to me
Speaker's residence to have them arrested there? The question
remains unanswered.

Two persons happened to get into the Reichstag almost im-
mediately after the fire broke out. One of them rang up the
' Vorwarts' with the news. He was prompdy cut off at the exchange,
and was, together with his companion, arrested. Neither has been
heard of since - the memorandum describes the one as a member of
the staff (Redakteur) of the 'Vorwarts', but this is an error. The arrest
of Stampfer, the editor, was at once ordered, and the editorial office
was occupied by police within an hour (Stampfer eluded arrest by
flight). The entire Socialist press throughout Prussia was sup-
pressed on the night of the fire. The first edition of the *Vorwarts'
was already out, but all copies -were confiscated by the police. On
the morning of the 28th, Torglcr gave himself up to the police ofhis

291

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

own free will, accompanied by Bis solicitor, Dr Rosenfeld, and
prepared to face and answer any charges that might be brought
against him. This was most inconvenient *his flight', according
to the memorandum, "would have been much more desirable 9 .

A SCARE CREATED

But the fire made a deep impression on the electorate. The
elimination of the Socialist press in Prussia and the rigorous
censorship on all other papers allowed hardly a suspicion to get into
print. The Nationalists could not speak up, for even if they did not
want the Nazis to have the mastery they could not afford to see
diem collapse - and the truth about the fire, if publicly known,
would have meant the collapse of the Nazi movement. The
scaremongering story of the impending Bolshevik revolution was
supplemented by others - an alleged plot to assassinate Hitler, the
alleged discovery of Communist arsenals and munition dumps,
ana so on. Such stories are still being invented and appear in the
Nazi papers almost every day.

A Bolshevik scare was created, especially in the country districts
(stories of burning villages were calculated to impress the imagin-
ation of the peasantry). Hitler seemed the one saviour from
anarchy and red revolution. That scare not only gave the Nazis and
Nationalists a joint majority, it also unleashed that inhuman
persecution of Communists, Socialists, Liberals, pacifists, and Jews
which is still going on. It made the complete suppression of the
Communist Party possible, thus eliminating its members from the
Reichstag anrl giving the Nazis the absolute and overwhelming
majority which the elections alone had not given them.

Despite the clumsiness with which it was staged, and despite the
grossness of the falsehoods with which facts and motives were
concealed, the fire turned out to be a big success. The legend that it
was the work of Communists and Social Democrats is the main
foundation of the Hitlerite Dictatorship and of the Brown Terror.

292

Appendix C

THE OBERFOHREN MEMORANDUM

As published by the German Information Office, London, in 193 3,
Mffj>r for minor alterations where the original P.ngti1i translation
made poor sense. A. j. p.

INTRODUCTION

GERMAN Conservatives had for years encouraged and supported
die Nazis. They did not think much of Hitler - he was too big a
demagogue for them, besides being a foreigner (it was only later on
that he exchanged his Austrian nationality for German). But the
impoverished, demoralized middle-class was rallying round V>JTP
and, in the villages and smaller towns, he was not only pushing
back the local Socialists and Communists but was creating a
movement that would, in time, challenge Socialism and Com-
munism in their strongholds, die big industrial cities.

The Nazis, with immense propagandist skill, an instinctive sense
of what would -work on the German imagination, and with a new
colourful romanticism and glittering martial display, roused long-
dormant emotions ^r%A fired the youth, of middle-class Germany
into arevivalist mass-activity against organized labour.

To the German Conservatives - notably the German-National
People's Party which is for rather was, for it has gone down in the
storm it helped to raise) roughly what right-wing Tories are in
England - the new movement was more than welcome. At last,
they thought, there was hope of achieving what years of vain effort
by the gentry, the bankers, the industrial leaders, the judiciary, and
the army, had failed to achieve, namely to thrust organized labour
back to where it had been before the war.

And so they helped the Nazis where they could - they openly
admired their martial spirit, applauded their ideaNffm, and helped
to fill the capacious and insatiable Nazi purse.

The Conservative calculation was not only accurate - it was too

293

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

accurate. The Nazis did all that was expected of them - and much
more. They developed a contagious fervour that swept the nation.
They claimed to represent a new generation, they preached a kind
of romantic, middle-class Socialism, andadopted tie phraseology of
revolution. They became by far the biggest of the political parties,
thus ousting the Socialists from a position they had held for years.
Though financed by the same people and representing, as their
decrees since gaining power have clearly shown, the same interests
as the Conservatives, the Nazis had no intention of being the docile
agents of the Conservatives - if they were victorious, then victory
was to be theirs and theirs only.

Even in 1932, the Conservatives were getting alarmed. They
still hoped that, together with the Nazis, they would have a
majority in the Reichstag, they themselves just ma]cfng up the
difference between majority and minority, and so holding the
balance of power. But the Nazis were not submitting to tame
partnership in a conventional coalition.

So with incomparable audacity and imaginative ginning, they
set fire to the German Parliament, the Reichstag, and, by putting
the blame on the Communists and Socialists, they raised a
Bolshevik scare and started an anti-Labour drive, creating an
entirely new situation in which they could set their Terror going.
They had long been training tngir militants^ the Brown Shirts and
Black Shirts, for this Terror. While winning a great electoral
victory on the 5th March, they carried out arrests, beatings, and
shootings, thus laying the foundations of the dictatorship that is still
in power.

The Parliamentary leader of the German-National People's
Party was Dr Oberfohren. He had been a hater of Socialism and
Communism. The Nazis had filled him, too, with, hope that they
would stem its progress. But he was a man of decency. He could
honour an honest opponent, like the Communist leader, Ernst
Torgler, even when he fought Mni ruthlessly.

To him the triumph of the Nazis soon came to mean die triumph
of barbaric violence and the end, not only of Socialism and Com-
munism, but oflaw, order, and morality.

The burning of die Reichstag was to him an abomination. The
world, he thought, should know about it and should be told what
the Nazis really are. Only thus, he believed, could their influence be
counteracted and, perhaps, their sweeping advance held up.

294

APPENDIX C

So he inspired a journalist to write a memorandum on the
Reichstag fire, he himself supplying most of the necessary in-
formation (being in touch with the Cabinet in which his own Party
was represented, he knew more than most). This is the now famous
'Oberfohren Memorandum', which contains the fullest existing
account of circumstances surrounding the fire. Every newspaper
being in Nazi hands, it was impossible to secure its publication in
the ordinary way. Typewritten copies were secretly circulated in
Germany towards the end of March.

One of these copies was brought out of Germany by an P.ng1iK
journalist in April and so it reached the outside world, the first
extracts being published in the Manchester Guardian on 27 April.

The genesis of the Memorandum was kept a secret, but one day a
detachment of Brown Shirts raided Dr Oberfohren's house (he was
growing more and more suspect). A copy of the Memorandum
was found there. He was given a briefperiod to take the only
course left open to him. After writing a heart-broken letter to his
friend, Dr Hugenberg, the chairman of the German-National
People's Party, he committed suicide.

HITLER'S HANDS TIED

The conditions under which the General Field Marshal (Hindenr-
burg) conferred the Chancellorship on Adolf Hitler were very hard
for the N.S.D.A.P. (the Nazi Party). They had to agree that the
German-Nationalist Ministers were given a dear majority in the
National Coalition Cabinet. They were also forced to agree to the

* in the person

iiHerr von Papen, The very day after their accession to office, the
N.S.D.A.P. were obliged to accept die transfer of the powers of
the Commissioner for Prussia, conferred upon the Chancellor by
the emergency decree of 20 July 1932, to the Vice-Chancellor Herr
von Papen. The Prussian Executive had been deprived of all
authority. It retained purely advisory functions.

Another thorn in Hitler's flesh was the promise he had been
forced to make to Hindenburg that without the latter's consent no
changes whatever would be made in the National Coalition
Cabinet, no matter what the results of die elections demanded by
the N.S.D JLP.

Hindenburg had already had unpleasant experiences with a
similar undertaking. At the time of Herr von Papen's nomination

295

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

to the Chancellorship - in summer, 1932- Hitler had tried to break
his promise following his electoral victory in August, 1932, and had
demanded the leadership of the Cabinet. His demand, as is well
known, was met by a sharp refusal on the part of the General Field
Marshal.

On 30 January Hitler had had to give a specific promise in the
presence of all the other members of the Cabinet. During the
election campaign that followed, individual members of the
Cabinet, especially the Stahlhelm* leaders repeatedly referred to
this pledge, and assured their supporters that the leader of the
N.S.D. A.P. was bound to keep his word of honour.

GdRIKG AND GOEBBELS TRY TO FREE HITLER

National-Socialist circles round Goring and Goebbels tried
desperately to find a way out of this impasse. This section of the
N.S J) .A.P., particularly the ambitious Dr Goebbels, had not the
smallest intention of playing second fiddle to anyone. They
regarded the hegemony of the N.SJD.A.P. as absolutely indispens-
able. A situation in which the relationship of forces within the
Cabinet was distributed was intolerable to them. Further, Goebbels
and his friends recognized that the authority of the General Field
Marshal had grown enormously throughout the Nationalist ranks.
They were also conscious of the feet that the greater part of the
Stahlhelm and the ReichswehH" stood solidly behind tne General
Field Marshal and his Nationalist friends. Nor could Goring and
Goebbels count on the police in the German States. In the largest
State, Prussia, the police force was honeycombed with Social
Democratic sympathizers.

Goebbels and his circle paid special attention to recent trends
among the working classes. They could not help noticing, and
fearing, the emergence of a Social Democrat-Communist United
Front among the workers, in spite of all the resistance of the Social
Democratic leaders, and in. spite of many mistakes on the part of
the Communist leadership.

The National-Socialist minority in the Cabinet had already tried
in vain to force the prohibition of the Communist Party at one of
the very first Cabinet meetings. But Herr Hugenberg had pointed

"R-g^jyrtjjiypr^gn'ff organization.* p a Ti ir ni^^ r y an

* r-

regular army.

APPENDIX C

out the likelihood of public disorder by uncontrolled and un-
controllable acts of terror on the part of the Communists or Left
Radical elements once the restraints imposed by preserving the
legality of the Party had been removed.

The Police President,* Melcher, had made repeated raids on the
Karl Liebknecht Haus. f At the beginning of February, yet another
of these thorough searches was made. The result of this search
showed, that the building was as good as abandoned by the Com-
munist Party. All documents, typewriters and stationery had been
cleared out of the office, and all that was left in the bookshop and
storerooms was a small number of pamphlets. Only the so-called
City Press was still functioning and producing election material.
All that was left in the former Party Secretariat was a man to answer
the telephone.

AND GOEBBBLS CONCOCT A PLAN

Goring and Goebbels, the two most active champions in the
fight for the hegemony of the N.S.D.A.P., took counsel. The
ingenious Goebbels, handicapped by no scruple, soon devised a
plan, the realization of which would not only overcome the
resistance of the German-Nationalists to the demdiids of the
N.S JD.A.P. for suppression of Social Democratic and Communist
agitation, but, in case of its complete success, also force die actual
prohibition of the Communist Party.

Goebbels considered it essential to plant such material in the Karl
Liebknecht Haus as would establish the criminal intention of die
Communists, the impending threat of Communist insurrection,
and the grave danger of delaying. Since Melcher's police could find
nothing in the Karl Liebknecht Haus, a new Police President had
perforce to be appointed, and from tie ranks of the National-
Socialists. Only reluctantly did Herr von Papen let his hrnchman
Melcher go from the Police Presidium. The proposal of the
N.SJD.A.P. to nominate as Police President the leader of die
Berlin S^,tCk>untHeUdorflwasrejected.Agreemmtwasfinally
reached on the more moderate Admiral von Levetzow, who
certainly belonged to the N.SJD JLP., but who had preserved
certain connections with GermanrNationalist circles. The

* Of Berfin.

+

j:

5mrm4tei/*^, die private army of the Nazis.

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

of material into the vacant Liebknecht Haus was
m "itself. The police had blueprints of the building, and the
necessary documents could easily be brought in.

Goebbels had been perfectly aware from the first that it would be
necessary to emphasize the seriousness and the credibility of the
documents he had forged by some incident or other, even if only an
indirectly suggestive one. This question, too, was not neglected.

THE PLAN PUT INTO EXECUTION

On 24 February the police entered the Karl Liebknecht Haus,
which had now been standing empty for weeks, searched it and
sealed it.* On the same day the discovery of a mass of treasonable
material was officially announced.

On 26 February, 'Conti', a Government news agency, issued
an exhaustive report of the results of the search. There is no point in
reproducing this report word for word; the blood-and-thundcr
style of the announcement must have struck every impartial reader
of it. Secret corridors, secret trapdoors and passages, catacombs,
underground vaults, and similar mysteries -were all listed in detail.
The whole make-up of the report appeared the more ridiculous, in
that, for example, the cellars of an ordinary building were described,
literally, in such fantastic terms as 'underground vaults' and
'catacombs'. People must have wondered how it was that many
tons of the most exact instructions for carrying out the supposed
revolution had ostensibly been hidden in well-concealed annexes
to the cellars. Particularly ridiculous was the announcement that
these hidden discoveries provided dear proof 'that the Communist
Party and its subsidiaries maintained a second, illegal, underground
existence* !

Within the Coalition Cabinet the results of the search of the Earl
Liebknecht Haus gave rise to the most lively controversy. Papen,
Hugenberg and Seldte reproached Herr Goring in the sharpest
possible maimM- for Tnalrfng use of such a commnn swindle. Tncy
pointed out that the documents supposed to have been found were
so crudely forced that in no circumstances must they be made
public, t They neld that much more care should have been taken,

* Thft only search mfthg TTarl T^lrr^V Tfore vyef cam-fd OUt at which the

Secretary of the Com-mnnist Party was not present and at which, reo
not given for material taVrn away; gee evidence T.nnr1mi rV>mrmtir>Ti t

t Toda.y,acven months later, they have notyetbrm made public.
29*

APPENDIX C

after the fashion of the English Conservatives at the Hm* of the
Zinoviev-letter forgery. The clumsiness of the communiqui issued
to the Conti agency -was attacked* German-Nationalists and the
Stahlhehn both maintain^ that no one could be expected to
believe that the Communists would have chosen, of all places, the
Karl Liebknecht Haus as their illegal headquarters. The forgeries
would have looked far more convincing had the illegal head-
quarters been 'unearthed 9 in some other district.

However, once the whole affair had been made public, the
German-Nationalists had no alternative but to agree to the anti-
Communist decrees. They had never been motivated by any
regard for the Communists ; what they criticized was the clumsiness
oithe whole proceedings. And, moreover, they were particularly
anxious that, come what may, the Communist Party should be
allowed to contest the forthcoming elections, lest the National-
Socialists obtain a clear majority in the Reichstag.*

The German-Nationalist paper Montagszeitung did in fact
publish an announcement to the effect that the Government had
been forced, in view of the material found, to take stern defensive
measures. Among the proposed measures to be discussed on
Tuesday, 28 February, one of the most striking was the prohibition
of the printing-)- of foreign press reports injurious to the Govern-
ment.

GOEBBELS AND GORING TAKE FURTHER COUNSEL

Goebbels and Goring were furious at the obstinacy of their
German-Nationalist ally. They wanted at all costs to force the pro-
hibition of the Communist Party. In order to increase the
plausibility of the material found, they had already organized, with
the help of devoted confidants, acts of arson in various parts of the
city. On 25 February, for example, No. 43 of the Berlin evening
paper Tempo announced in gigantic four-column headlines the
discovery of a fire in the former Imperial Palace. In the course of
their controversy with their German-Nationalist ally, the National-
Socialists had come to understand that obtaining the prohibition of

* Reichstag election, November 1932 (bcforcdie fire): Nazis 196, Nadonalistt
51, total 247; all others 337,less 100 C^imnnnists, 237. New dection,Mardi 1933
(after the fire): Nazis 288, Nationalists 52, total 340; afl others 307, less 81
Communists, 226.

f In Germany.

299

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

the Communist Party was no easy task. Consequently a more
prominent building bad to be set on fire. A blow could then be
dealt to the Communists and Social-Democrats and the German-
Nationalist ally faced with a. fait accompli.

All was prepared* On Monday, 27 February, for some extra-
ordinary reason, not one of the National-Socialist Propaganda
General Staff was engaged in the election campaign. Hcrr Hitler,
the indefatigable orator, Herr Goebbels, Herr Goring, all hap-
pened to be in Berlin. With them was the Daily Express corre-
spondent, Sefton Ddmer.* So, in a cosy family party, these
gentlemen waited for their fire.

THE FIRE

Meanwhile the agents of Herr Goring, led by the Silesian S.A.
leader, Reichstag-deputy Heines,^ entered the Reichstag through
the heating-pipe passage leading from the palace of the President of
the Reichstag, Gdring. Every S.A. and S.S.ij: leader 'was carefully

selected and had a special station assigned to TiiVn. As soon as the out-
posts in the Reichstag signalled that the Communist deputies
Torgler and Koenen had left the building, the S.A. troop set to

"work. There was plenty of incendiary matrrialj and in a few
minutes it was prepared. All the men withdrew into the President's
Palace, where they resumed their S.A. uniforms and whence they
could disappear unhampered. The only one to be left behind was
their creature, van der Lubbe, whom they had thoughtfully
provided with a Communist leaflet on the United Front, a few odd
photographs of himself, and even, it appears, a membership carrd
of some Dutch Communist splinter group.

CONFUSION

The incendiaries, Goebbels and G6ring, had thought out every-
thing very cleverly, but they had none the less made far too many
mistalrrs, mistakes that are very difficult to understand considering

* Sic. But Mr Ddmer was not in Hitler's compmy k/oi* dk^. He learnt of
its outbreak from _a colleague who Uyed near the scene ^ amved wkhin a few
mmntcs. Accordingly, me imputation in the memorandum is clearly un-
justified. It is, however, easy to see how Oberfohren became mfaatwi Mr
Ddmermhuarrormtrda^tW^

taken by Hitler's car and passed through the police cordon in his company. Thus
he arrived wim tibia just after titejire.

f A self-confessed and convicrrd rmirde-er, now Chief ofPolice ofBreslau.

j Sckutzstaffeln, another section of the N.S JD.AJ>. private anny.

300

APPENDIX C

the skill and ingenuity of the present Minister of Propaganda. Let
us look at some of them.. In the official announcement of 28
February (Prussian Press Service) we can read, inter alia: "This fire
is the most monstrous act of terror yet committed by Bolshevism in
Germany. Among the many tons of subversive material that the
police discovered in their raid on the Karl Liebknecht Haus were
instructions for running a Communist terror campaign on the
Bolshevik model. According to these documents, Government
buildings, museums, palaces and essential buildings were to be set
on fire. Further, instructions were given to place women and
children, if possible those of police officials, at the head of terrorist
groups in cases of conflict or disorder. The burning of the Reichstag
was to have been the signal for bloody insurrection and civil war.
Widespread looting was to have broken out in Berlin as early as
4 a.m. on Tuesday. It has been established that for today (28
February) acts of terror were planned against certain individuals,
against private property, against the life and safety of the
population. 9

The astonished reader may well ask how it was that the police
authorities and the Minister of the Interior waited until after the
burning of the Reichstag on 27 February to take their anti-
Bolshevik steps, when they had 'discovered' the plans for the in-
surrection as early as the 24th. Further, as early as Saturday, 25
February, an act of arson was discovered in the former Imperial
Palace. But Herr Goring and Herr Levetzow did nothing at all to
guard Government buildings, palaces or museums. That was one
of the mistakes they Tnadc in their hurry.

But it was certainly not the only one. Who in his right senses can
believe the fairy tale they have spread about the incendiary van
Lubbe? A hiker arrives from Holland. He spends the night of 17-18
February in Glindow near Potsdam. In toe 'Green Tree Inn* he
produces his Dutch passport and signs the visitors' book with bis
full nam^ birthplace, and place or usual residence. He is poorly
dressed in a grey coat and soft hat, and in no way distinguishable
from any of the otter hikers that throng the roads. On 1 8 February,
he leaves Glindow in the direction ot Werder-Berlin* On the 19
February or so, he reaches Berlin, and lo and behold, he im-
mediately succeeds in joining the Action Committee of the plotters
and is assigned a most important part in helping to fire the Reichs-
tag barely ten days later. Whereupon this fine revolutionary sticks

301

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

a Dutch passport, a United Front leaflet and so on in his pocket,
stays behind in the Reichstag and is die only one to get himself
arrested by the police. 'Look, everybody, here's the Communist
who set fire to the Reichstag/ Herr Goebbels and Herr Goring
have badly overestimated the credulity of world public opinion. It
is an even happier chance that this van Lubbe also volunteered the
information that he was in touch with the S.P.D.* In the Press
Service f report mentioned above we read: The Reichstag
incendiary has admitted bis contacts with the S.P.D. By this
admission, the Communist-Social Democrat United Front has
been implicated/ Goebbels and Goring went further still, although,
on the whole, perhaps a little too far. For they also produced three
scoundrels who had allegedly seen Deputies Torgler and Koenen
in the Reichstag with van Lubbe. The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
declared that Herr Torcrler had spent several hours before the fire in

the company of the incendiary who was later arrested, and also with
a number of other individuals, some of whom were seen carrying
torches. The only reason why these individuals were not
caught was because they managed to escape through the
subterranean heating passage leading to the palace of the Reichstag
President.

The astonished reader may -well wonder once again why Herr
Torgler was allowed to run about the Reichstag with several
persons, all equipped with torches, for several hours. And he may
also marvel at the smartness of Herr Goring, or at least of his police,
who discovered, even before the fire was extinguished, that the
incendiaries must have got away through the subterranean hating
passage.

It may, perhaps, be worth mentioning further that two reporters
from, the VofwSfts managed to slip through the cordon round the
Reichstag, to get into a telephone booth in the Reichstag and to ring
up the Vorwdrts with the news that Herr Goring had set the
Reichstag on fire. Naturally, they were both caught in the tele-
phone booth, if only as 'proof* that it was the Social Democrats who
had started the rumour that Goring had set fire to die Reichstag.
Again, Air Sefton Delmer of the Daily Express, who had waited
with Goring, Hitler and Goebbels for the conflagration to break

* Social Democratic Party.

f Official Prussian Press Service, under the dkcct control of Goring.
302

APPENDIX C

out,* wired to his newspaper that shortly after the news of the fire
became known, he met his friends in the Reichstag. When Hitler
saw von Papen there, he said to Papen: If this fire, as I believe,
turns out to be the handiwork of Communists, then nothing can
now stop us crushing this murder pest with an iron fist.' A little
later, Goring joined them as well and said to Herr Hitler: "This is
undoubtedly the work of Communists. A number of Communist
deputies were in the Reichstag twenty minutes before the fire broke
out. We have succeeded in arresting one of the incendiaries/ Alas,
how obvious this dispatch of Mr Sefton Delmer makes it why the
Reichstag was burned!

How beautifully, too, they had prepared the lists of people to be
arrested by the police! Hundreds of addresses had been got
together, not only of Communists, but also ofbourgeois journalists
-who might have added their voices to the protest. . . . f

THE GERMAN-NATIONALISTS AND THE FIRE

Though the German-Nationalist Party was in full agreement
with the severe measures against the Communists, it was as fully
opposed to the act of arson carried out by its partner in the
Coalition. Thus the Cabinet endorsed the severest measures
against th* Communists and also against the Social-Democrats, but
voiced the opinion that the fire would seriously damage the
reputation of the National Front J abroad. So outraged were the
Nationalists that the National-Socialist ministers failed to obtain
the prohibition of the Communist Party. They needed the
Communist deputies to prevent the National-Socialists securing a
dear majority in Parliament. The Cabinet also told Herr Goring
not to publish the forgeries he had 'found* in the Karl Liebknecht
Haus. It was pointed out to him that the publication of these clumsy
forgeries would damage the Government even further. Particularly
embarrassing to the Government was the fact that the Communist
deputy Torgler, Chairman of th^ Communist fraction in the
Reichstag, had surrendered to the police on the Tuesday morning.
It would have been far preferable had he fled abroad. The mere fact

* Sfc. But Mr Delmcr was not witkHider before^
a libel action against one retailer of this completely unsubstantiated rumour.

A.J. P.)

This sentence was incomplete in the original.
: The coalition of the Nationalist groups.
Sic. They* refers to the German-Nationalist Ministers.

303

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

that, accused though, he was of so grave a crime, after the arrest of
thousands of Communist officials, and in peril of execution under
maitfcl law, he yet placed himself at the disposal of the police, was
in the highest degree annoying to the Government. Herr Goring
was instructed to deny that Torgler had surrendered voluntarily.
The world press was, however, so unanimous in ascribing the fire
to leading members of the Government, that the National Govern-
ment's reputation was seriously undermined.

G6RIN6 AND GOEBBELS TAKE FURTHER COUNSEL

Much as Goring and Goebbels welcomed the paralysis of the
Communist and Social Democratic election machinery, though
they knew that broad masses of the petty bourgeoisie, white-collar
workers, and peasants would believe their tales about the burning
of the Reichstag and consequently vote for the N.S.D.A.P. as the
vanguard against Bolshevism, they were not at all pleased with the
position taken up by the German-Nationalist Ministers in the
Cabinet. Approval continued to be withheld from the prohibition
of the Communist Party. With increasing; bitterness they felt that
their boundless ambition was hemmed in by German-Nationalists,
Stahlhdm and Reichswehr. It was obvious to them that they must
break this grip as soon as possible. They plotted and schemed.

At last, tms group decided on a bid for power during the night of
$-6 March. Tlie plan was to occupy the Government buildings
and to force Hindenburg to reconstruct the Cabinet. Should he
refuse, his abdication was to be demanded. In that case, Hinden-
burg was to hand the Reich Presidency over to Hitler, and Hitler
would appoint Goring as Chancellor. There was some talk that
this might perhaps be effected on the occasion of the great pro-
paganda march of the S.A. and the S.S. through Berlin, combined
with the ceremonial paying of homage to Hitler, which had been
fixed for Friday, 3 March. This great propaganda march was now
with every possible dispatdbu Already numerous
of S.A. men from districts outside Berlin were camped
within the city, the streets along the route of the procession were
cordoned off by the police, traffic was diverted, and thousands
waited in the Wilhelmstrasse* for the demonstration.

As rumours were spreading that tfrig marrH was to lead to seizure
of the Government buildings, the German-Nationalist Ministers

* The quarter m Tyhich thft C^c^fmmfnt \m\f\mM art* fffr
304

APPENDIX C

managed, at the eleventh hour, to obtain Hitler's agreement to
abandon the route through the Wilhelmstrasse. The thousands in
the Wilhehnstrasse were suddenly informed, to their astonishment,
that the S. A. procession was to take another route not touching the
Wilhehnstrasse, but going west through the Prin^-Albrechtstrasse.
The German-Nationalists had to bind themselves in return to
renounce the march of the Stahlhelm through the Government
quarter. The Stahlhelm march had been proposed as a march of
to Hindenburg. To this change, the Stahlhelm leaders

A GERMAN-NATIONALIST COUNTER-MARCH

The German-Nationalist Ministers were in a very serious
position. The election results in Lippe-Detmold had shown how
real was the danger of the German-Nationalist voters going over
bag and baggage to the Nazis. Their propaganda was no match at
all for the Nazis*. The Herrenklub,* die Stahlhelm groups and the
German-Nationalist leaders consulted together. Nazi occupation
of the Government buildings having only just been averted on
Friday afternoon, reliance could not be placed on the Stahlhelm and
Rdchswekr alone keeping the Nazis at bay on the night of 5-6
March. It was dear that the masses stood, not behind Hindenburg,
but behind their idol Hitler. It would have been futile to fight alone
against these masses and their mass enthusiasm. The only thing left
was to act as unscrupulously as Goring and Goebbels had acted
when they set fire to the Reichstag. The following plan was
devised. The public -would be told officially about the results of the
investigation into the Reichstag fire, but the announcement would
be so worded that, in case of need, it could be used against the
Nazis. An official atinr>ymn*mffnf of this kind could be used to exert
pressure on the Nazi Ministers, if they really persisted in their plan
to occupy Government buildings. In that way it was intended to
fill the Nazi masses with doubt and to win them over for the
National Front under the leadership of the German-Nationalists
and Hindenburg. An appeal was prepared to nationalist Germany,
in which Hindenburg would reveal the plot for the violent seizure
of power, f accuse Goring, Goebbels ana Hitler of arson, referring
to the earlier, ambiguous communiqu^, and summon the Nazi

* A group of Junkers* landowners and militarists - die Papen circle.
f By the National-Socialists.

305

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

masses to rally behind Hindenburg as the only effective answer to
Marxism. Hindenburg himself was not to be present at the
Stahlhehn's ceremony of homage to him, but was to spend the
night of the 5th-6th outside Berlin under the protection of the
Reichswehr. The Reichswehr itself would be put on the alert.

THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF FRIDAY, 3 MARCH

The duef of the political police, Dr Dids, a man who, in spite of
his membership of the N.SJD.A.P., was very close to the German-
Nationalists, summoned, in the late evening hours of Friday, a
press conference to receive and make public the results of the
investigation, as far as it had gone, into die burning of the Reich-
stag. The Nazis were told that this communiqul was being issued
to support their election campaign. Besides the communique, Diels
gave out photographs of the incendiary, of his passport, of a Com-

r the j

munist leaflet found on him, and of the gutted Session Chamber.
At the same time a reward of 20,000 marks was promised for
information leading to the discovery of those implicated in the
burning. The significant passages IT* the official ^rm rwn rt^m^n t ran

f 11 ** <y *

as follows:

There can be no question of van der Lubbe's having been in contact
with the K.PJD.* Van der Lubbe is known to the police as a Com-
munist agitator/

Exact consideration of these two sentences reveals their am-
biguity, indeed, rather, their single significance. Van der Lubbe's
contact with the K.PJD. is said not to be in 'question' ; now, this can
mean that such contact has been proven; but it can also mean the
exact opposite. Now, this very ambiguity could - if the need arose -
be used to exonerate the K.P.D. Or take the following sentences :

'Van der Lubbe admits his own participation in the crime. How far the
investigations have proved the complicity of other persons cannot at
the moment be revealed in the interests of the pending proceedings
and the safety of the State.'

It is perfectly obvious that the security of the State could be no
ground for concealment of serious evidence against Communists.
For election purposes, it would have been far better to say: 'The
investigations have shown cause for serious suspicions against
persons either belonging to or closely associated with the K.P.D.*

* German. Communist Party.

306

APPENDIX C

But had the K.P.D. been accused straight out, the purpose of this
press conference and of this communique as means of pressure
against the Nazi Ministers would have been defeated. Further, one
must not forget Diels's evasive answer - again in the interests of
security - to an inquisitive journalist, who asked how far grounds
existed for serious suspicions that there had been contacts between
van der Lubbe and other Communists. How could the safety of the
State have been endangered if Diels had merely declared that
grounds existed for such suspicions?

Diels also refused to say anything about the discovery of seditious
instructions in the Karl liebknecht Haus, *lest their content be
made known to Communists throughout the Reich*. (This
although Goring had already published the most essential part of
this 'incriminating' material in an official announcement on the
night of the fire.) At this moment, declared the ingenious Dr Diels,
he would rather not make any statement about the assertion that
van der Lubbe had been seen in the Reichstag with the Communist
deputy Torgler or else with Koenen. (why not?)

THE 5TH OF MARCH

Election day had come, and the police had taken a multitude of
precautions. In particular, public buildings were guarded, far more
carefully even than had been decreed after the fibre. The authorities
gave out that preparations had been made for every possible
eventuality. None die less, it was said that demonstrations of some
kind must be expected as soon as the definite results of the election
became known.

With streets strongly guarded by police patrols on horseback, on
foot and in motor vans, election day passed off unusually quietly in
t-Ti^ capital. The Stahlhclm demonstration in honour of Hinclen
burg took place in Hindenburg's absence. In Hindenburg's
message to the Stahlhelm we find the following remarkable
passage : 'Your wish to convey to me the greetings of former Front
soldiers cannot, unfortunately, be gratified for reasons which I have
given verbally/ On the advice of his friends, Hindenburg was
spending the day in D oeberitz with the Reichswehr, and not in the
Government quarters. Hidcr, however, had been told that Hinden-
burg was ill and unable to leave his palace. The Nazis thought that
the President was in the Wilhehnsteasse on the night of 5 March.
The Stahlhelm had already announced that its country contingents

307

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

would move into Berlin for the night of the 5th-6th. In a Stahl-
hclm communique dated 12 March ('Die junge Front*, No.
n) it is stated that after the demonstration, toe field-grey Stahl-
helm companies waited in readiness for further orders until mid-
night before they were dismissed*

Shortly after the dose of the ballot, between 6.30 and 8.30,
picked S.A. troops poured into Berlin in squadrons of brand-new
motor vans. One of these detachments, consisting of six vans, each
carrying about thirty to forty men, drove from the Heerstrasse
across toe Reichskanzlerplatz and down the Neue Kantstrasse and
Tauentzienstrasse at about 6.45 p.m. The occupants of the vans
were newly equipped, wore dark breeches and dark S.S. caps, and
brown shirts with brassards. Silently, without cheers, without
slogans, these detachments rushed with extreme speed into the city,
behind a special car carrying the leaders.

The Reichswchr, too, was not idle. The Rdchskanzlerplatz was
patrolled by an armoured radio car, and so were all roads leading
into the city. In that way the Reichswehr command was given an
exact picture of the forces pouring in as well as of their subsequent
movements.

Midnight was the hour fixed for seizing the Government
buildings. The Nazi leaders, including Hitler, Goring, Goebbds
and Frick, waited in the Reich Chancellory . Shortly before eleven a
strong detachment of Reichswehr officers, led by General von
Blomberg, called on Hitler. They requested Hitler to order the
immediate withdrawal ofhis private army. Hitler was also informed
that Hindenburg was in Doeberitz with die Reichswehr and that
the Reichswehr would quash any attempt at a violent seizure of
power on the part of the Nazis.

For this purpose the Stahlhehn was stationed ready for action in a
ring round the centre of the city and at other strategic points. In
addition, the most important public buildings were occupied by the
Reichswehr. Hitler was required further to announce to the press
that, in spite of the great electoral victory of the Nazis, which even
at this hour was already certain, no change would be made in the
composition of the Government. In case of refusal, General Blom-
berg declared, shortly and firmly, that Hitler, Gdring, Goebbcls
andFrick would be arrested on suspicion of arson. Hindenburg
would then issue an appeal to all Nationalists, and especially to the
millions of Nazi voters, to stand firm behind HIT*. The fight

308

APPENDIX C

against Bolshevism called for the greatest determination, but die
national cause must not be allowed to be soiled by such criminal
acts as those committed by a number of the Nazi leaders. General
Blomberg referred briefly to the equivocal communique of the
political police issued on Friday night, which made it possible now
for the Cabinet to denounce the Nazis as the true Reichstag
incendiaries.

The gamble for power, which Hider, Goring and Goebbels had
imagined to be so easy, was lost. The torches they had lit had been
snatched away by the Gennan-NationaHsts and dieir military
allies. No time for reflection was granted. Motor cars bearing die
adjutants of the Reichswehr and toe S.A. and S.S. leaders accom-
panying diem left the Wilhelmstrasse en route to all die action
stations of the S.A. and S.S. The detachments of S.A. and S.S. men
from outside die city which had been intended to occupy die
Wilhelmstrasse left the city forthwidi and returned to their camp
in the Mark.* The Stahlhelm was told about midnight that no
special orders were likely to be issued and that the men in field-grey
could at last turn in.

NEW PLANS BY G&RING AND GOEBBELS

Furious at being outwitted by dieir allies, Goring, Goebbels, and
their cronies considered what next might be done. Should so
gigantic an electoral success still bring diem no nearer sole hege-
mony? They had 288 deputies and the German-Nationalist ally
only fifty-two - a dear majority; yet die Cabinet still remained in
die hands of die German-Nationalists, f This was really a bit too
much for die pride of those who had already seen themselves as sole
dictators of Germany. All that had taken place during this week in
the way of illegal acts, private arrests by S.A. and S.S. men, private
killings, bestial treatment of captured political opponents in die
private prisons of die S.A. $ - afl had been organized by the Nazi
leadership to create further disturbances and to provide the excuse
for stealing further slices of power. Quick action was needed. In a

* Brandenburg.

f TUfrre *ti^ fViTriiinrmi!rt- Party wan prrAibite^ the Rftirhstag stood: National

Front 340, Opponents 307; without die Communists: Nazis 288, all others
(inrlnding Nationalists) 280.

Genna^

See letter of Count Revcntlow (an N.S J>A.P. member) reprinted in the
Manchester Guardian.

309

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

speech at Stettin, Goring expressly declared that he assumed full
responsibility for every illegal act that might be committed during
the week. The seizure of the newspaper offices of the Centre Party,*
interference in administrative and judicial matters by S.A. troops,
destruction of trade union buildings, in short everything that
happened, all happened because the Leader so wished it. Gocbbds
busied hjms^lf with attacks on department stores and one-price
shops, f Forgeries, like the letter from Messrs Hermann Tietz (a
large department store) to the Central Committee of the Com-
munist Party, were published to inflame the masses, and particularly
the petty bourgeoisie. A deputation of S.A. men appeared outside
the Stock Exchange, and as a climax to the disorder, Goring
delivered the famous incitement speech of Essen, in the course of
which he said: 'Go, rob and plunder far and wide. Break into
houses, shoot - never mind if you shoot too far or too short - the
main thing is, shoot! and don't come back to me without any
booty.' This in short was the context of his infamous speech. A
brigand chief could not have urged his bandits on more eloquently.
During the night following this speech the S. A. seized the printing
works of the Centre Party's newspaper and forced the editors, at
gun point, to print Goring's speech verbatim on the front page.
Two hundred thousand copies of the Centre Party newspaper were
printed on the Friday morning and rushed by car for distribution to
all towns and villages.

But the echoes of the speech had scarcely died away, when the
Leader issued a new decree directly opposed to Goring's incite-
ment.

Hitler, driven into a corner by the far more powerful and
stronger forces of the German-Nationalists ana Reichswehr,
demanded, only a few hours after Goring's speech, in an appeal to
his Party comrades of the S.A. and S.S., the strictest possible
discipline, immediate cessation of all individual action, particularly
the molestation of foreigners, the dislocation of motor traffic and
the disturbance of business. Whoever promoted such acts was
irresponsible and malicious. It was well-known that Communist
spies were trying to incite Germans to such action. The further
course of the national uprising must henceforth be directed from
above. The effect of this appeal was like a thunderclap. A moment

* Catholic Centre Party.

f Shops like our Woolworths.

310

APPENDIX C

previously Goring had said : 'I refuse to regard the police as watch-
men for Jewish department stores. There must be an end to the
nuisance of every swindler detected in his swindles calling the
police. The police will protect anyone in Germany who earns an
honest living; they are not here to protect swindlers, bandits,
usurers and traitors. To all those who say, that somewhere, some
time, somebody has been seized and ill-treated, we can only reply:
"You can f t plane a board without shaving splinters." We live in
exceptional times. For years we have been promising to settle
accounts with these traitors/

And a few hours later, Herr Hitler: 'Only unscrupulous in-
dividuals, and especially Communist spies, will seek to com-
promise die Party oy individual action.' It was all too obvious.

GOEBBELS AND GORING STILL UNSATISFIED

Once more a shackled Hitler had been forced to call off the
masses. Goebbels and Goring were frustrated. They now proposed
to make a last attempt on Sunday 12 March. S. A. and S. S. men were
equipped with cars and arms, ready to strike. They waited in vain -
as they had waited in vain after the first Presidential election of
1932, as they had waited in vain in August 1932, and as they had
waited in vain through the night of 5th-6th March.

As early as 10 a.m. the radio announced that the Reich
Chancellor would make an important appeal at 2 p.m. And at two
o'clock Adolf Hitler announced nothing more revolutionary than
die Reich President's 'flag decree'* and added an energetic and
dxtremely sharp appeal to his Party comrades for blind obedience
to his orders. Every individual action must be suppressed. He, as
Leader, appealed to them, the German people, in the name of the
National Revolution. The economy must be put on a sound foot-
ing. Interference with the administration and with business must
stop forthwith. All paltry desire for revenge must be checked.
Hitler's appeal was repeated over the wireless almost hour by hour.
S.A. and S.S. men all over the Reich listened to the impressive
voice of the man they idolized. Goebbels, G6ring and their cronies
were powerless.

THE FIGHT GOES ON

Goebbels and Goring must postpone the realization of their
dreams to some distant day. Goebbels is Reich Propaganda
* Alalong th^ Swastika Germany's new flag.

3"

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Minister. He keeps trying to undermine the Reichswehr, and to
detach, the Stahlhelm as well as the Reichswehr from the German-
Nationalists. The Reichswehr is still exempt from hoisting the
swastika flag, it still salutes the black-white-and-red banner with
the iron cross. For how long? And who will prove stronger in the
struggle? When will Hitler be unshackled?

This is the full text of the memorandum. The [original\ translator has
thought it better to preserve the irregularities and unclarities of what was
obviously a very hastily typed sheet. Oberfohren has not had to wait long
for the answers to his questions. Within three months the German-
Nationalist Party had dissolved, the Stahlhelm had been incorporated into
the ranks of the 5L4., the Cabinet had been reconstructed and, as a climax,
Gdring has been promoted from Captain to General by Hindenburg! But
rapid as has been this march of events, it has been too slow for Oberfohren,
who was found dead on May jth.

Had he lived, he would have seen Hitler still bound, as he and his
Party must always be bound within the framework of its determination to
preserve the national interests which the old German-Nationalists re-
present. But the mock-struggle he described has been resolved - the Nazis
nave bought power by endorsing in practice the substance, e.g. the whole
social programme and decrees of the German-Nationalist landowning,
military and big business interests; and the remaining German-Nationalists
have bought tolerance by endorsing in silence the form, e.g. the brutalities
ofGdring, the demagogic falsehoods ofGoebbeb and what, as we see here,
they know well to oe the crowning infamy of tyranny of all time - the
Leipzig trial.

Appendix D

EXTRACTS FROM THE WHITE BOOK ON THE
EXECUTIONS OF 30 JUNE 1934

(Editions du Carrefowr, Paris, 1935.)

THE REICHSTAG INCENDIARIES

THE spectre of the Reichstag fire cannot be exorcized. In vain did
the Hitler Government try to clear its name before the whole world
at a trial lasting three months. In vain is Ernst Torgler being kept
imprisoned even after his acquittal, lest he raise his voice against the
true incendiaries. In vain did the Nazis hope that van der Lubbe's
secret would die with him. The accusing voices cannot be silenced.

Whenever Goring raises his voice, he is answered with an echo
of: 'Incendiary!' Whenever Goebbels addresses the world, the
reply resounds: 'Incendiary!' The flames of the Reichstag fire
continue to scorch the guilty.

In the Nazi camp itself, the fire has become a blackmail weapon.
The names of the incendiaries were known to eleven people. Three
of the incendiaries Ernst, Fiedler and Mohrenschild were mur-
dered on 30 June, and the accessories to the crime - Rohm, Heines
and Sander - -were also sent to their death. All of them paid with
their lives for their knowledge of the Reichstag fire, anid for the
great service they had rendered to National Socialism.

Fear of persecution and murder are rife as never before inside the
leading Nazi clique. Whenever we are shown pictures of Nazi
leaders, we invariably see them flanked by huge men, right hands
bulging in coat pocket, in the manner of American gangsters. But
not even these bodyguards are thought adequate, for, in addition,
every Nazi leader has thought fit to compile a dossier inculpating
all the others: Goring against Himmler; Himmler against Gdring;
Goebbels against Gdring; Ley against Goebbels - and all against
Hitler.

The S.A. Gruppcnfuhrcr Karl Ernst was another to compile a
dossier and to deposit it in a safe place. In it, Ernst dealt with the
Reichstag fire and gave a full account of the actual events. He

313

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

named the incendiaries and their accomplices. Ernst was counting
on the fact that, in case of his arrest or dismissal, the mere threat of
publishing the document abroad would persuade Goring and
Goebbels to rescind any measures they might have decided to take
against him. Another reason why he compiled his dossier was that
he needed a safeguard against his own assassination, or a m^ns of
revenge against his murderers. Ernst laid it down that the dossier
was to be made public only in the event that he died an unnatural
death or if Fiddler or von Mohrenschild authorized the publication.
He deposited the document with a lawyer - probably the same
Advocate Voss to whom Gregor Strasser, too, had entrusted his
papers. Voss was murdered on 30 June, before he had a chance of
taking the document abroad.

Ernst also sent a signed copy of his document and a covering
letter of explanation to Heines, whom he advised to put his own
knowledge about the Reichstag fire on record as well.

We cannot tell whether Heines folio-wed Ernst's advice, but we
do know that Heines sent Ernst's letter and confession, together
with some other papers, to a friend in Breslau. It is this man, who
still lives in Germany, who has sent us Ernst's confession. That
confession explains the course of tie Reichstag fire and bears out
what was stated in the two Brown Books and the entire world press,
and what was proved at the London Counter-Trial, viz. that the
Reichstag was burned by the National Socialists.

We are now publishing Ernst's confession, in the hope that the
National Socialist leaders may feel compelled to contest our case
against them before an unprejudiced Court. We accuse the
Prussian Prime Minister, Hermann Goring, Reichsminister Joseph
Goebbels, the Saxon Prime Minister, Manfred von Killinger, and
Potsdam Police President Graf Wolf Heinrich von HeUdorff of
having played a part in planning or in staging the Reichstag fire.
We accuse the Nazi press attache*, Ernst Hanlstaengl, of being an
accessory. We accuse the assassins of 30 June, of the murder of the
S. A. leaders Ernst, Fiedler, von Mohrcnschildt and Sander, all four
of them men who had dangerous knowledge of the Reichstag fire.

The following were murdered :

Karl Ernst, S. A. Gruppenfbhrer, Berlin-Brandenburg, Member of the
Reichstag, Member of the Prussian State Council, Reichstag
incendiary; Fiedler, S.A. Oberfohrer, Berlin-Brandenburg, Reichstag
incendiary; Von Mohrenschild, S.A. Fuhrer, Berlin-Brandenburg,

314

APPENDIX D

Reichstag incendiary; Sander, Standartcnfuhrer, Berlin-Branden-
burg, accessory to the Reichstag fire.

With their deaths the Nazi leaders hoped to remove all traces of
National Socialist guilt in the Reichstag fire.

We now publish two documents, viz. Ernst's covering letter to
Heines, and his account of the Reichstag fire. These documents
prove conclusively that the National Socialist leaders stand for
everything that is vile and treacherous in political life.

On 5 June, when the battle for the S.A. had already been lost,
Ernst wrote the following letter to Heines:

June 5th, 1934-
DearE,

The Chiefhas been round at last. Long discussion. The Chief told
me they were at it for hours. 'He' set tip his usual howl and im-
plored the Chief to believe that He would much rather see the Chief
at the head than an old geezer from Neudecker. But it didn't work.
General difficulties, fear of foreign opinion, a meeting in Venice
and the like. But you will meet the Chief yourself and will hear all
about it from him. The upshot of it all was a mutual promise to do
nothing until the old chap croaks. Then we shall see.

But that means getting down to brass-tacks. Anyone can see that,
if we wait until the Egyptian bastard makes common cause with the
cripple and the tailor s dummy, the three of them are going to do us
in. So we must act first. Hermann is out to skin us alive, and though
he can't stand the cripple, when it comes to fighting us he would
even make friends with Black Boy. We shall have to explode a
bomb right up tfi^r backsides. I would do anything to get nold of
the cripple alone. A pity R. stopped me smashing his skull that rime
when he spread that muck about my marriage. I've told the Chief
about your letter. You know I'm usually not much of a speaker and
writer. He agrees with you that we must be prepared for the worst.
The cripple will stop at nothing. The Chiefhas sent all the most
important documents to a place of safe keeping. After my chat with
him, I, too, signed an account of the events in February which M
had typed out for me. It is now in safe hands. If anything nasty
should happen to me, the whole balloon will go up. I'm enclosing a
signed copy just in case. Look after it carefully, and put your own
things in a safe place, as well Read it through. It is the strongest

315

THE RBICHSTA6 FIRE

weapon we have and our last resort. Perhaps it will help, but
perhaps it won't. You know that the cripple can outwit us any time.
Our strength lies elsewhere, and we are determined to use it.

But this time you'll have to stick with us through thick and thin.
I have thought up a plan to smash the cripple once and for all, but
we must lie low until everything i$ settled. The main thing is to hit
the cripple where it hurts him most. That is my own aim but the
Chief is more concerned with slciiming Hermann alive. But then
why not do them both in? Still, the first thing is to drive a wedge
between the two bastards. If only we can get 'Him' on our side for a
while, everything will be fine. H will tell you more about my plan.
You can rely on him blindly. It's a pity that I'm not with you while
you two are fixing things up. I agree with everything theChief says
but I insist on having the cripple to mysel nobody can rob me of
that pleasure. He is the bastard who got me into this mess, and
then laughed up his sleeve at me.

The Chief thinks we must not start before the Party Conference.
He has news that the old boy will live for another ten years. I don' t
believe that, but since every tody agrees with the Chief, I can't do a
thing about it. But after the Party Conference, we simply must get
cracking. I'm going on leave within the next few weeks. I've just
got to get away with her for a bit. Get Fi to send me a copy of your
documents, don't put the thing off, and be careful with Sch. People
are talking. Don't be seen with him so often. The Chief tells me
'He* has dropped a remark about it.

Clear up your den. Our friend from the Albrechtstrasse informs
me that Black Boy is thinking of looking us all up; I myself am
looking forward to the visit because I've prepared a lovely surprise
for him.

Keep your chin up,
Yours,

Carlos.

[KEY: 'He' = Hitler; the Chief =R6hm; theCripple = Goebbels;
tint* tailor's dummy and Hermann = (Coring thft Egyptian = Hess ;
Black Boy = Himmler ; R is probably Fiedler; *M' is probably von
Mohrenschild; the 'friend from the Albrechtstrasse is a Gestapo
official (the headquarters of the Gestapo are in the Prinz Albrecht-
strasse) ; 'Sch' is probably another adjutant of Heines.]

316

APPENDIX D

ERNST'S CONFESSION

% the undersigned, Karl Ernst, S.A. Gruppenfiihrer, Berlin-
Brandenburg, Prussian State Councillor, born on September ist
1904 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, herewith put on record a full account
of my part in the Reichstag fire. I am doing so on the advice of
friends who have told me that Goring and Goebbek are planning to
betray me. If I am arrested, Goring and Goebbels must be toll at
once that this document has been sent abroad. The document itself
may only be published on the orders of myself or of the two friends
who are named in the enclosure, or if I die a violent death.

I hereby declare that, on February 27th, 1933, 1 and two Unter-
Juhrer named in the enclosure, set fire to the German Reichstag. We
did so in the belief that we should be serving the Fuhrer and our
movement. We hoped that we might enable the Fuhrer to deliver a
shattering blow against Marxism, the worst enemy of the German
people. Before this pestilence is completely smashed, Germany
cannot recover. I do not regret what I have done, and I should do
the same thing all over again. What I do regret deeply is that our
action helped scum like Goring and Goebbels to rise to the top, men
who have betrayed the S. A., who betray our Fuhrer every day, and
who use lies and slander to destroy the Chief of Staff and the S.A.
The S. A. is the strongest weapon our movement has.

I am a National Socialist. I am convinced that National Socialism
stands and &!!$ with the S.A.

A few days after we seized power, Helldorff asked me to go with
him to Goring's that evening. On the way, Helldorff told me that
the idea was to find ways and means of smashing the Marxists once
and for alL When we got there, I was surprised to see that Goebbels,
too, had turned up, and that he had worked out a plan: when the
Fuhrer' s plane touched down in Breslau, where he was to address an
election meeting, two 'Communists' would attack him, thus
providing the pretext for a campaign of retribution. Heines had
been summoned to Berlin to discuss all the details. The Berlin-
Brandenburg group of the S.A. was to stand ready. Helldorff
would be told all the details within the next two days.

Two days later, we met again at Goring's, but this time without
Goebbels. Goring had decided against the whole plan; he felt it
might give undesirable elements the wrong ideas. He added that
Goebbels disagreed with him, and implored us to do our best to

317

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

talk him round. He had advised Heines to postpone his trip to Berlin
for a few days.

Next day, I was ordered to report to Goebbels. I arrived last, and
found that the others had all agreed to drop the original plan.
Goring suggested a number of alternatives including ffo^ firing of
the Palace and the bombing of the Ministry of the Interior. It was
then that Goebbels said with a smile that it would be far better to
set the Reichstag on fire, and then to stand up as the champions of
parliamentauianisni. Goring agreed at once. Hdldorff and I were
against the plan because we thought the practical difficulties in-
volved were far too great. We pointed out that starting a fire in the
Palace was much easier, because there was hardly anyone on guard
there. But in the end, we were won over by Goring and Goebbels.
We spent hours settling all the details. Heines, HdttdorfFandlwould
start the fire on the 25th February, eight days before the election.
Goring promised to supply incendiary material of a kind that
would be extremely effective yet take up very little space. On
February 25th, we would all hide in the Reichstag Party rooms
until everyone had left, and then set to work. The technical
arrangements were left to me. When I called on Goring next day,
he had suddenly grown less confident. He was afraid that our
hanging about was bound to be noticed on a Saturday, when the
Reichstag closed earlier than usual. He also felt that it would be
wrong to let known S.A. leaders do the actual work. If one of us
were caught, everything would be lost. He telephoned Goebbels,
who turned up soon afterwards. Goring mentioned his objections,
but Goebbels pooh-poohed them all.

Even so, we had to give up our plan in the end, when we realized
that the Communists, whose Party rooms were opposite ours, kept
very late hours. There was every reason to fear that they might spot
us.

In the meantime Rohm had come to Berlin, and Heines,
Killinger, Helldorffand I discussed the whole question with him
overanieaLltwasdeddedttatnoneofiisniusttakeanypartinthe
fire because the danger to the Party was far too great. Killinger
recommended leaving all the dirty work to a few S.A. men wno
could later be got out of the way. Rohm felt he must make
absolutely sure he was appointed State-Security Commissar before
the fire.
At the next discussion which, I believe, took place in Goring's

318

APPENDIX D

house, HelldorfF was absent because he was addressing an election
meeting. I suggested to Goring that we use the subterranean
passage leading from his residence to the Reichstag, because that
would miniTniflft the risk of discovery. I was ordered to pick my

to February 27th, because February 26th was a Sunday, a day on
which no evening papers appeared so that the fire could not be
played up sufficiently for propaganda purposes. We decided to
start the fire at about 9 p.m., in time for quite a number of radio
bulletins. Goring and Goebbels agreed on now to throw suspicion
on the Communists.

HelldorfF and I paced out the subterranean passage three times in
order to get our precise bearings. In addition, Goring had given us a
section plan and also a precise time table of when the officials made
th^jr rounds of inspection. During one inspection of *h^ sub-
terranean passage we were almost caught - the watchman, who
probably heard our footsteps, made an unscheduled round. We hid
ourselves in a dead-end branch of the passage which the watchman
fortunately overlooked - else he would not be alive today. Two
days before the fire, we stowed the incendiary material which
Goring had procured for us in the same dead-end branch. The
material consisted of small canisters of a self-igniting phosphorus
mixture together with a few litres of paraffin. During all our visits
to the passage we always went in through the boiler-house to
which we had been given keys. Whenever we went in and out,
Goring would call the watchman so that we could come and go
unnoticed.

I wondered for a long tinw whom I could trust with the
execution of the plan and came to the conclusion that I would have
to join in after all, and that I could only rdy on men from my closest
circle. I convinced Goring and Goebbels and they both agreed. I
now i-Mnlr that they merely agreed because they thought they
'would get me more firmly under their thumb that way. My choice
fell on two tnen in whom I had complete confidence, and to whom
I am most grateful I made them swear an oath of personal loyalty,
and they kept it. I knew that I could rdy on them. Ttev themselves
yrnist decide whether or not their names, which are indicated in the
covering letter, should be made public.

During our discussion, Goring told us that he had confided our
plan to HanfstaengL Hanfstaeng^, who lived in Gdring's reside

319

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

would, on the 27th, divert die watchman's attention while we
slipped in through die residence. We had keys to all die doors.
Goring himself was going to be away - in die Ministry of the
Interior.

A few days hefore die fixed date, Helldorff told us that a young
fellow had turned up in Berlin of whom we should be able to make
good use. This fellow was the Dutch Communist van der Lubbe. I
did not meet him before the action. Helldorff and I fixed all die
details. The Dutchman would climb into the Reichstag and blunder
about conspicuously in the corridor. Meanwhile I and my men
would set ore to die Session Chamber and part of the lobby. The
Dutchman was supposed to start at 9 o'clock - half an hour later
th aT> we did.

The main difficulty was keeping to a precise timetable. The
Dutchman had to climb into the Reichstag after we had left, and
after die fire had already started. In order tx>femi1iari2ehimwididie
place, Helldorff sent him on a tour of inspection into the Reichstag.
Apart from that he was made to learn the plan of the whole
Reichstag by heart with the help of a very accurate map and with
Sander's constant prodding. We decided that van der Lubbe must
climb into the Reichstag restaurant, not only because that was the
simplest way in, but also because, if he were caught, we should still
have plenty of time to get away. To make perfecdy certain that van
der Lubbe would not take fright or change his mind at the last
moment, Sander would not leave his side aU afternoon. He would
escort him to the Reichstag and watch him climb in from a safe
distance. As soon as he was sure that van der Lubbe was in, he was to
telephone Hanfstacngl and Goring. Van der Lubbe was to be left
in the belief that he was working by himself.

I met my two helpers at eight o'clock precisely on die corner of
Neue Wilhelmstrasse and Dorotheenstrasse. We synchronized our
watches with Sander's. We were all dressed in civilian clothes. A
few nrmiiit** later we -were at the entrance to Goring's residence.
We slipped into ^Hc passage unnoticed. Wan Ataengl na j diverted
die watchman. At about 8 o'clock we reached the dead-end
branch. Here we had to wait until 8.40 p.m., Le. until die guard had
finished his round. Then we pulled galoshes over our shoes and
walked on as silently as we coukL We entered the Session Chamber
at 845 p.m. One ot my helpers went back to the dead-end branch
to fetch die rest of die incendiary material* We started with the

320

APPENDIX D

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Hall and the Session Chamber, where
we prepared a number of fires by smearing chairs and tables with
the phosphorus mixture and by soaking curtains and carpets in
paraffin. At exactly 9.5 p.m. we had finished, and started on our
way back. It was high rime - the phosphorus was fixed to go off
within 30 minutes. At 9. 12 we were back in the boiler-house and at
9.15 we climbed across the wall.

The allegations published abroad against any others are false.
We three did the work entirely by ourselves. Apart from Goring,
Gocbbcls, Rohm, Heines, KilUnger, Hanfstaengl and Sander, no
one knew about our plan.

The Fiihrer, too, is said not to have known until later that the
S.A. set the Reichstag on fire. I do not know about that. I have
served the Fuhrer for eleven years, and I shall remain faithful to him
unto death. What I have done every other S.A. man would gladly
have done for his Fuhrer. But I cannot bear the thought that the S.A.
was betrayed by those it helped to bring to power. I confidently
believe that the Fuhrer will destroy the dark plotters against the S. A.
I am writing this confession as my only insurance against the evil
plans of Goring and Goebbels. I shall destroy it the moment these
traitors have been paid out.

Berlin, June 3rd, 1934

Signed Karl Ernst

S.A. Gruppenfuhrer

The confession had the following addendum:

'This document may only be published on my orders, on the
orders of my comrades Fiedler and von Mohrensdhild, or if I die a
violent death. My comrades Fiedler and Mohrensdbild who have
helped to set fire to the Reichstag must themselves decide whether
their names can be made public or not. By our deed, the three of us
have rendered yeoman service to National Socialism. 9

321

Sources Consulted

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Judge Paul Vogt, Cadenberger-Niederelbe;

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Paul Bienge, West Berlin;

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Ferdinand Kugler, Basle ;

Dr Eberhard Taubert, Bonn;

Otto Schmidt, Hanover;

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Dr Hermann Rauschning, Portland, Oregon;

Dr Richard Lepsius, Baden-Baden ;

Various ex-associates of Willi Munzenberg;

323

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

Prof. Dr Grimm;

Former Chief Clerk of the Reichstag, Ludwig Krieger, Bonn;
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3^5

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

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Jagcr, Hans: DaswahreGesichtderNSDAP. Prague, 1933.
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1956.

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> n. d.

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(Define) Paris, 1933.
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326

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1953-
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zum Untergang des Rciches*. Der Weg, Buenos Aires, 12/1954.
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1933-

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(Athenaum) Bonn, 1951.
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London, 1939.
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Tagebuch, Paris, 1933.

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1933-
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Fricdrich Grimm, (Ullstcin) BoJin, 1934.

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THE REICHSTAG FIRE

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NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALS:

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AmtL Preussischer Pressedienst

Berlin

DerAngriff, Berlin
Arbeitertum, Zeitung der DAF,

Berlin

Berliner Borsen-Courier
Berliner Borsenzeitung
Berliner Lokalanzeiger
Berliner Nachtausgabe
Braunschweiger Neueste Nachrichten
Braunschweigische Staatszeitung
Christ und Welt, Stuttgart
Daily Express, London
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung,

Berlin

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Frankfurter Hefie
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Hannoverscher Kurier
Hannoversche Presse

Het Volk, Am!et<*r^aTn

History Today, London
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Ministerialblatt fbr die Preus-

sische innere Verwaltung,

Berlin
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Neurologic, Berlin
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KorrespondetLZ, Munich
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Neue Ziircher Zeitung, Zurich
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New York Evening Post
Niedersachsische Tageszeitung,

Hanover
Niedersachsische Volksstimme,

Hanover

Das Parlament, Bonn
Politische Studien, Munich
Prager Montagsblatt
Pravda, Moscow
Reichsgcsetzblatt, Berlin
La Rfyublique, Strasbourg
Die Rote Fahne, Berlin
Saarbruckener Volksstimme
Safety at Work, London
Salzburger Nachrichten
Sender Freies Berlin
Der Spiegel, Hamburg
Der Stern, Hamburg
Stuttgarter Zeitung
Stiddeutsche Zeitung, Munich
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De Telegraaf, Amsterdam
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The Times, London
Vierteljahresheftejur Zeitgeschichte,

Stuttgart

329

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

VolkischerBeobachter, Berlin- Die Welt, Hamburg

Munich Weltbild, Munich

Vorwarts, Berlin Die Weltbiihne, Berlin

Neuer Vonvarts, Berlin Dcr Weg, Buenoes Aires

Newer VorwSrts 9 Bad Codes- Wiener Arbeiterzeitung

berg IVissen und Tat, Dusscldorf

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Vossische Zetotng, Berlin Die Zeit, Hamburg

330

References

CHAPTER I

1. Martin H. Sommerfeldt: Kommune, p. 45.

2. Vorwarts 9 20 December 1957.

3. Reported to the author by Buwert,now a police inspector.

CHAPTER 2

1. Prelim.Exam. 9 VoLl 9 p. $T.

2. Dejongh: L>e Brand, p. 54.

3. Dejongh: op. cit., p. 54.

4. Prelim. Exam., VoL I, p. 50.

5. NieJersachsische Tagcszetoung, 29 September 1933.

6. Brown Book I, p. 112.

7. Brown Book I, p. 58

8. BrownBook I, German ecL, pp. 55 and 57.

9. Brown Book I, German ecL, p. 57.
10.

CHAPTER 3

1. JYrfim.J5jttim. > VoLL,p.33.

2. Statement by DrZirpins on 26 December

3. Prelim. Exam., VoL n, p. 142.

4. Brown Book II, p. 4.7.

6. Volkischer Beobachter, 15 March 1933.

7. Red Book, p. 36.

8. F. vonPapen: D*r Wahrhciteinc Gasse, p. 303.

9. Franz J. Ernst : Der Reichstagsbrand, p. 12.

10. Niedersachsische Tagcszeitung, 25 March 1933-

n. Proc. 9 24 March 1933.

12. Picker, Hitlers TischgesprSche, p. 211.

CHAPTER 4

1. IXcWelt, 24 August 1957-

2. Appendix to Dr Wolffs report, op. cit. f p. 22.

3. IMT, VoL XI, i

331

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

4. Erinnerungen eines Reichstagsprasidenten, p. I48f.

5. Gust&TrR^ler,DasOhrdesMalchus 9 p.2i.

6. BroumBookI,p. 134.

7. PrcL Exam., VoL G, p. 46, Evidence of Engineer Krug.

8. Prel. Exam., VoL G, p. 486

9. Douglas Reed: The Bunting of 'the Reichstag, p. 151.

10. Douglas Reed: Fire and Bomb, p. 20.

11. Douglas Reed: The Burning of the Reichstag, p.

CHAPTER 5

2. Gocbbcls : Vom Kaiserhofzur Reichskanzlei, p. 269.

3. Volkischer Beobachter, 28 February 1933.

4. Reported to the author by Ludwig Grauert on 3 October 1957.

5. VoUdscherBeobachter, 5 November 1933.

6. Papen: op. cit., p. 302.

7. Martin H. Sommerfeldt: Ich wardabei, p. 25.

8. Rudolf Diels: Lucifer ante portas, p. 193.

9. Quoted in N. Hocgner: Die verratene Republik, p. 345.
10. J. Goebhels: op. cit., p. 254.

1 1. RudolfDiels : op. cit., p. 194.

12. RudolfDiels: op. cit., p. 195.

13. Dr WiDielin. Schneider: Neue Politik, Zurick, Nos. 2-5, 1949.

14. Der. Spiegel, 25 November 1959.

15. Reported by Grauert on 3 October 1957.

1 6. Martin H. Sommerfeldt: Ich war dabei, p. 26.

17. Niedersachsische Tageszeitung, 2 March 1933.

18. Sack: Reichstagsbrandprozess, p. 32.

19. Ernst Fischer: Das Fanal, p. 37.

CHAPTER 6

1. Keeping's Contemporary Archives, 11 December 1933.

2. Arthur Koesder: The God that Failed, p. 71.

3. M. Buber-Neumann: Von Potsdam nach Moskau, p. 199.

4. Arthur Koesder: The Invisible Writing, p. 198.

5. Arthur Koesder : The God that Failed, p. yif.

6. Ruth Fischer: Stalin and German Communism, p. 613.

CHAPTER 7
i. Manchester Guardian, 26 April 1933.

33*

REFERENCES

3. Sefton Delxner, Trail Sinister, p. 198.

4. Wolff: op. cit., p. 36.

5. Brown Book I, p. 82.

6. VdlkischerBeobachter, 12 April 1933.

7. VdlkischerBeobachter,i2,April.i9$3.

8. Dr Sack: op. cit. t p. 40.

9. Dr Wolff: op. cit., p. 35.

10. Neuer Vorwarts, 29 October 1933.

11. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 46.

12. CWolfop.cit.,note63.

13. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 49.

14. Neue Arbeiter Zeitiwg, Hanover, 25 February 1933.

15. Martin H. Sommcrfeldt: Xbmmwne, p.

16. As reported in Brown Book J, p. 75.

17. VblkischerBeobachter, 3 March 1933.

1 8. C Papen: op. cit., p. 291.

CHAPTER 8

1. Auftxtu, No. 2, 1947.

2. A. Kocsdcr: Tte Invisible Writing, p.

3. JEc/w ifcr Woche y 12 August 1949.

4. Die JZeil, 4 November 1948.

5. Hays: City Lawyer, p. 341.

6. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 240.

7. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 116.

8. Hays: op. cit,, p. 345.

9. Hays: op. cit,, p. 377.
10. Hays: op. cit., p. 378.
n. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 149.

12. Hays: op. cit., p. 388.

13. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 154.

14. Brown Book U 9 p. 7.44.

15. Kocsdcr: The Invisible Writing, p. 200.

16. Dr Sack: op. cit., preface-

17. The Fight for a Book, p. 16.

18. Hays: op. cit., p. 373.

CHAPTER 9

1. Brown Book L> p. 82.

2. Brown Book I, p. 52.

3. Hannoverscher Kurier, 8 November 1933.

333

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

4. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 48.

5. Werner Steplaan.: Joseph Goebbels, p. 61.

6. R. Wolff: op. cit.

7. Martin H. Sommerfeldt: Ich war Jabei, p. 30.

8. Martin H. Sommerfeldt : Ich war Jabei, p. 57.

9. Martin H. Sommerfeldt: Ich war Jabei, pp. 60-6 1.
10. MartinH. Soirunerfeldt: Jt/iit'fn'd^ijp. 30.

n. Letter to Der Spiegel, 30 November 1959-

12. IMT, VoL DC, p. 196.

13. Echo Jer Woche, 12 August 1949.

14. Meissner: Staatssekretar, p. 283.

15. Rudolf Dick, op. cit., p. 324.

16. Vdtkischer Beobachtcr, 5-6 November 1933.

17. Rudolf Dicls: op. cit., p. 204.

18. Die Zeit, 21 October 1948.

19. NieJersSchsische Tageszeitung, 20 October 1933.

20. J. Goebbels: op. cit., p. 271.

21. Keesing's Contemporary Archives: 19 April 1933.

22. VolkischerBeobachter, 28 February 1933.

23. Brawn Book H, p. 303.

24. Douglas Reed: TheBurning of the Reichstag, p. 121.

25. Letter dated 8 November 1957.

2(5. Douglas Reed: The Burning of the Reichstag, p. 122.

27. VolldscherBeobachter, n October 1933.

28. Amtl. Preuss. Pressedienst, 2 March 1933.

29. Erinnerungen tines Rnchstagsprasidenten, p. 151.

30. Ich war im hrennenJen Reichstag, Stuttgartcr Zeitung, 27 February

1933-

31. AiuijcdoieI^bct:DasGeiinssenstehtauf,p. io<5.

32. BrownBookl, p. 123.

33. Berliner Lokalanzeiger, 28 February 1933.

34. Letter by Puble, 29 November 1957.

35. Brown Book n, p. 45.

36. NieaersSchsische Tageszeitung, 12 October 1933.

37. Brown Book U, p. 298.

38. Dasjreie Wort, 21 February 1953.

39. LObecker Nachrichten, 21 July 1954.

40. Verdict, p. 24.

41. Neue Ztochcr Zeitung, 14 October 1933.

334

REFERENCES
CHAPTER 10

1. NeueZtircher 2Zeitung,2,B September 1933.

2. Prelim. Exam., VoL I, pp. 103-5.

3. Prelim. Exam., VoL I, p. 100.

4. Indictment, p. 33.

5. Prelim. Exam., VoL VI, p. 62.

6. Prelim. Exam., VoL VI, p. 63.

7. Note* of Evidence, 27 September 1933, p. 171.

8. Nlrue Z&rcher Zeitung, 23 October 1933.

9. Prelim., Exam., Vol: Reichstag m, pp. 156-7.

10. Prelim. Exam., Vol: Reichstag IV, pp. 37-46.

11. Nates of Evidence, 2,7 September 1933, pp. 150-151.

12. Notes of Evidence, 27 September 1933, p. 155.

13. Hannoverscher Kurier, 23 November 1933.

14. cBuber-Neumann:op.cit.,p.238.

15. cS.Blagojew

16. Brown Book H, p. 57.

17. I>i> Zeft, 21 October 1948.

18. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 218.

19. Brown Book IT, p. 53

20. F. Kugler : Geheimnis des Reichstagsbrandes, p. 85.

21. Notes of Evidence, 27 September 1933.

22. Brown Book II, p. 59.

23. Brown Book II, p. 55.

24. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 92.

25. C. Horkenbach: Das Deutsche Reich; entry of 21 March 1933.

26. Neue ZUrcher Zeitung, 28 September 193 3.

27. F. von Papen: op. cit, pp. 303-4.

28. Die Zeit, 28 October 1948.

29. Dr Sack: op. cit., pp. 96 and 288.

30. R. Dick: op. cit., p. 203.

31. Douglas Reed: The Burning of the Reichstag, p. 35.

32. Die Zeit, 4 November 1948.

33. NieJersSchsische Tagesxeitung, 24 September 1933-

34. Die 2Zeit, 4 November 15)48.

35. Neue Ziircher 2Zeitung, 14 December 1933*

36. Otto Braun: Von Weimar zu Hitler, p. ico.

CHAPTER II

1. op. cit., p. 41.

2. Neve ZUrcher Zeitung, 5 November 1933-

335

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

3. Douglas Reed: The Burning of the Reichstag, p. 406

4. F. Kugler: op. cit., p. 29.

5. Dr Sack: op. cit, Preface, p. 9.

6. F. Kugler: op. cit., p. 23.

7. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 155.

8. Maasbode, 31 October 1933.

9. Douglas Reed: The Burning of the Reichstag, p. 198.

10. Neue Ziircher Zeitung, 15 November 1933.

11. De Telegraaf, 7 October 1933.

12. Het Volk, 7 October 1933.

13. Hannoverscher Anzeiger, 7 October 1933.

14. Hannoverscher Anzeiger, 7 October 1933.

15. Neue Ziircher Zeitung, 8 October 1933.

16. F. Kugler: op. cit., p. 81.

17. Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 8 October 1933.

1 8. F. Kugler: op. cit,, p. 100.

19. Brown Book II, p. 178.

20. Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 6 November 1933.

21. Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 6 November 1933.

22. Quoted in Brown Book U, p. 258.

23. Brown Book II, p. ipsf.

24. Douglas Reed: The Burning of the Reichstag, p. 25 s

25. Indictment, p. 141.

26. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 140.

27. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 1848!

28. Neue ZUrcher Zeitung, 15 November 1933.

29. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 198.

30. Army Medical Opinion quoted by Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 242.

31. Indictment, p. 160.

32. Neue Zurcher Zeitung, i November 1933.

33. Neue ZUrcher Zeitung, I November 1933.

34. Kugler: op. cit., p. 136.

35. Indictment, p. 162.

36. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 167.

37. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 317.

38. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 162.

39. Prelim. Exam. VoL T m p. 43.

40. Indictment, p. 136.

41. Dr Sack: op. cit., p. 310.

42. Berliner Nachtausgafa and Neue Zfrcher Zeitung, ^^

336

REFERENCES
CHAPTER 12

1. Prelim. Exam. G. p.

2. Volkischer Beobachter, 23 October 1933.

3. De Telegraaf, 24 October 1933.

4. NieJersachsische Tageszeitung, 24 October 1933.

5. Douglas Reed: The Burning of the Reichstag, p. 187.

6. Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 24 October 1933.

7. Douglas Reed: The Burning of the Reichstag, p. 298

8. Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 13 November 1933.

9. Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 5 October 1933.

10. Berliner Lokalanzeiger, 28 February 1933.

11. Hannoversche Presse, 14 April 1956.

12. Volkischer Beobachter, i March 1933.

13. Feuerschutz, 1933, p. 50.

14. See M. J. Reaney: *Give the Hre Air' in Safety at Work, London.

15. Effenbergcr: Welt in Flammen, p. 266.

16. ibid., p. 272.

17. Volkischer Beobachter, i March 1933.

CHAPTER 13

1. Nationalsozialistische Partei Korrespondenz.

2. Berliner Borsett-Courier, 23 December 1933.

3. Erich Kuttner: Reichstagsbrand, p. 34.

4. Neue Ziiricher Zeitung, 19 October 1933.

5. Adolf Stein: Gift, Feuer, Mord, p. 27f.

6. Kugler: op. cit., p. 25.

7. NieJersachsische Tageszeitung, 28 September 1933.

8. Brown Book IT, p. 215.

9. Brown Booh II, p. 173.

10. Douglas Reed: The Burning of the Reichstag, p. 264.

n. Dcjongh: op. cit., p. 96.

12. Douglas Reed: The Burning of the Reichstag, p. 2,6$.

337

Index

AAU (General Workers' Union),

39

Adenauer, Dr, 160
Adennann, Paul, 26, 78
Agitprop (Communist Agitation

and Propaganda Department),

75-6, 99, 101, 153
Ahrens, Councillor, 161, 163, 165
Albada, Piet van, 38, 39, 64-6
Albreclit, Dr Herbert, 92, 169
Albrecht, Police-sergeant, 47
Arnim, Professor von, 150
August Wilhelm, Prince, 84, 136

Bahn, Walter, 200
Bakker-Nort, Dr Betsy, 120, 126
Baling, Professor Fischer, 172
Bannert, Bruno, 243
Barbusse, Henri, 102, 103
Barge, Wilhelm, 55
Bell, Dr, 57-8, 126
Benario, Olga, 189
Bergery, Maitre Gaston, 120, 127
Berliner Lokalanzeiger, quoted, 163
Berliner Nadttausgabe, 253
Berndt, Alfred. Ingemar, 91
Bernhard, Professor Georg, no,

125

Bernstein (witness), 236
Bienge, Paul, 182-4
Birkenhauer, Erich, 92, 244-5
Bismarck, Uhder-Sccretary von,

88

Blagoi (Bulgarian Communist) , 94
Blomberg, General von, 116
Begun, Paul, 30, 194, 270-1
Bdhmer, Judge, 165

Bonhoeffer, Professor Karl, 277,
279; quoted, 280

Borchardt, Otto, 260

Braffort (advocate), 121

Brandis, Judge, 198

Brandschutz, 265

Branting, Georg, 120-2, 126

Braschwitz, Detective-Inspector
Dr, 180

Braun (Prussian Minister), 160

Braun, Otto, 203

Biaune, Dr, 179

Breitscheid, Rudolf^ no, 125

Brown Book of the Hitler Terror
(and the Second Brown Book),
130, 142, 200, 206, 230; publi-
cation of, 3 1 ; on the SCrnewitz
legend, 54; on van der Lubbe's
alleged homosexuality, 56-8;
on Hcisig, 69-70; on the under-
ground passage, 75, 76; on Dr
Oberfbbren, 106; on Heines,
1 10 ; MOnzenberg's masterpiece,
116; sponsors, steff and sources,
1 1 7-20 ; Leipzig Court's attempt
to refute, 131-2; on Gdring,
133, 222, 223 ; onGoebbds, 133,
222, 231; on the delay of the
fire alarm, 154; on Gempp, 159,
162-5; on Dr Lepsius, 167-8;
on Alexander Scranowitz, 169-
71; on Judce Vogt, 193-5; on
Dr \V r erner s indictment, 203 ;
alleges that van der Lubbe was
drugged, 281

BrOning, Professor Dr August, 64,
258, 259, 263, 274

339

Brfim'ng, Heinricb, 251

Buber-Nctunann, Margarete,
quoted, 101

Banger, Dr Wilhelm (Presiding
Judge), 70, 99, 233, 269, 284;
his background, 205; opens
proceedings, 206-7 ; his conduct
of the trial, 208-11; exchanges
with Dimitrov, 211-21, 231-2,
247-52; and Goring, 222, 223;
admonishes the press, 253;
pronounces judgment, 268;
and van der Lubbe's laughter,

278-9
Buwert, Sergeant Karl, 24-6, 51,

155-6. 272

Campinchi, Maitre C&ar, 121

Coenders, Dr (Associate Judge),
205, 208, 279

Communist Party: their HQ at
the Reichstag, 23 ; alleged com-
plicity in Reichstag me, 5of,
8 iff.; blame Nazis for the fire,
68, 98, 99, 152-3; campaign
against Heisig, 69; Nazis fear
rising o 85-8; arrests of its
officials, 88, 92-6; and German
refugees, 98-9; Munzenberg's
anti-fascist crusade,ioi-3 ; issues
pamphlet on Reichstag fire, 109;
and the London Counter-Trial,
I2off.; and Goebbels, 133-7;
mass arrests of its members,
147-52; opposed to Dr Sack,
20 1-2; its moral bankruptcy,
237, 243 ; the trial verdict on
Communist 'accomplices', 276
See also Brown Book ; Dimitrov;
Munzenberg; etc.

Cripps, Sir Stafford, 124

Daluege, Ministcrialdirektor, 32
Darrow, Clarence, 121

340

INDEX

Primer, Sefton, 84, 115, 152;
quoted, 87, 105-6

Detscheff, Stephan, 123, 129

Diels, Rudolf, 21, 32, 64, 87,
88-90, 136, 140, 142, 144, 148,
151, 180, 204; quoted, 84-6, 147

Dimitrov, Georgi, 31, 70, 72, 122,
123, 127, 129, 151, 169, 193,
202, 209, 243, 256, 277; his
aliases, 93-5 ; arrested, 94-5 ; his
false papers, 95, 96; on Judge
Vogt, 189; exchanges with
Vogt, 189-92, 196-^7; alleged to
have bombed Sofia

.

196-7, 236; not allowed to con-
front van der Lubbe, 193 ; and
Dr TVcrner's indictment, 2034
his bearing in court, 206, 211-
13 ; exchanges with Dr Banger,
211-21, 231-2, 247^-52; ex-
change with Scranowitz, 214-
15; his first four expulsions
from courtroom, 21522; his
allegations against the police,
216-17; his role of accused and
defender, 218-19; dash with
Goring, 221-8; his fifth ex-
pulsion, 228; dash with Goeb-
bels, 228-31; and Kroyer, 234;
and Weberstedt, 235-6; his
final speech, 247-52; his theory
about van der Lubbe's accom-
plices, 251-2, 262, 265; and
Dr Schatz, 260; acquittal, 268;
and the witness Bogun, 271
Dobbert (Reichstag deputy), 56
Drdscher, Dr Ernst, 195-6, 232,

235, 236
Duesterburg, Theodor, 251

Echo der Wochc, 143
Editions du Carrcfour, 117, 143
flhistrJTi, Albert, 119
Enabling Laws, 5)6-7

INDBX

Ernst, Karl (Storm Troop Leader),
136, I37;quoted,ii4-i5;allegca
to be responsible for Reichstag
fire, 142-7; his alleged confes-
sion, 317-21

Erzbergcr, Matthias, 229

Fiedler, S. A. Oberfuhrcr Richard,

143

Fight for a Book, The, 132
Funmen, do, 103
Fischer, Ernst, quoted, 95
Fischer, Ruth, quoted, 103
Florin (Communist deputy), 243
Hoter, Hans, 23-4, 78, 155
Forster, Gauleiter, 139
Foth, Engineer, 265
Fraedrich (liftman), 255
Francois-Poncet, Andre*, 276
Frank, Dr Hans, 98, 223
Frank, Stadinspektor, 185
Frankfurter, Felix, 121
Frederick EL, quoted, 53
Fret, Bruno, 143
Freudenberg, Hermann, 24, 155,

272

Freudenberg, Frau Wally, 24
Frey, Kurt (Nazi deputy), 88, 232,

234-5, 243
Frick,Dr (Minister of the Interior),

71, 84, 88, 116, 138
Froclich, Walter (Associate Judge),

198, 199, 205

Gallagher, Leo, 121, 122, 129
Galle, Geheimrat (Director of the

Reichstag), 26, 168, 172, 264
Gast, Detective, 94-5
Gempp, Chief Fire-Director
Walter, 29, 82, 153-4, 156,
258, 264; his conduct at Reich-
stag fire, 159-65; disgrace and
suicide, 165-7

Gisevius (Gestapo agent), 143
Gleiwitz radio station, 137

Gocbbels, Dr J., 89, 91, 93, 101,
103, 151, 182, 197, 202, 204,
205, 222, 232, 248, 265; goes
to Reichstag fire, 81-2; deter-
mined to crush Communists,
85; confiscates foreign papers,
100; furious with Manchester
Guardian, 105 ; alleged co-plan-
ner of Nazi Putsch, 113, 116,
304-9 ; diatribe against Einstein,
119; alleged complicity in
Reichstag fire, 133-7, *53, *53;
dash with. Dimitrov, 228-31

Goring, Hermann, 21, 26, 66, 76,
93, 135, 152, 153, *<5o, i<57-9
172, 197, 202, 204, 236, 248,
249 ; anger over van der Lubbe,
71; has no regret over loss of
Reichstag, 74; at Reichstag fire,
82, 83, 169; orders search of
underground passage, 84; con-
vinced of Communist compli-
city, 86, 99, 123, 180; prepares
to crush Communists, 88; his
communique' on the fire, 89-92,
98, 181; alleged co-planner of
Nazi Putsch, 113-14, n<5, 3<M-
9; alleged responsibility for
Reichstag fire, 137-42, 143;
and mass arrests, 148, 151, 152;
alleged to have prohibited
general fire rail, 162-5 ; objects
to t^r examining magistrate,
179; dash with Dimitrov, 221-
8; disappointed with Supreme
Court trial, 253

Graening, Constable, 22, 26, 27

Grauert, Ludwig (Under-Secre-
tary), 82, 88, 97, *S3

Graux (advocate), 121

Gravath, Paul, 121

Grigorev (advocate), 129

Grimm, Professor Friederich, 23 1 ;
quoted, 207

341

Gritzbach (GOring's Secretary of

State), 141, 142
Grothe, Otto, 240-1
Grundtmann, Frlulein, 26, 82, 90
Grzesinski, Albert (Police Presi-

dent), 21, 154

r f Friedrich, 1656

Habicht, Dr H. R., 200
Haldane, J. B. S., 102
Haider, General Franz, 138, 140-1
Hanfstaengl, Dr Ernst, 74, 81,

143, 152, 153
Hanncverscher Anzeiger, quoted,

108
Hays, Arthur Garfield, 120, 121,

123-30, 132, 133, 202, 207
Hediger, Dr Rudolf^ 93 (alias of

Georgi Dimitrov, q.v.)
Heines, S.A. Colonel Edmund, 75,

110,131-2,143.222

Heisig, Detective-Inspector Hel-
mut, 31, 34, 70, 168, 180, 213,
275, 276; his career, 21, 67-8;
interrogates van der Lubbe,
32-3, 70, 187-8; investigates
in Holland, 64-7; accused of
complicity in Reichstag fire,
69; on Judge Vogt, 197^-8

Helldorf; Count Wolf von, 132,

146, I5O-I, 152, 222, 28O-I

Heller, Superintendent Reinhold,

93, "I
Helmer, Johannes, 94-6, 192, 210,

247, 249
Hennin&sdorf^ van der Lubbe fa.

49, 251-2, 262
Hesslrin, Pablo (Paul), 158;

quoted, 161-2, 172
HctLeven, 41
Het Volk, 57

Heydebreck (S.A. leader), 145
Heydrich, Reinhard, 149
Himmler, Hemrich, 138, 152

342

INDEX

Hindcnburg, President von, 71,
152, 160

Hintze, Willi, 185-6

Hitler, Adolf; 44, 53, 64, 81, 82,
84, 88, 93, loo, 101, 103, 133,
138, 143, 151, 152, 153, 161,
172, 179, 204, 205, 229, 249,
272 ; anger over van der Lubbe,
71-2; visits Reichstag fire, 84;
outburst against Communists,
85; prepares for Communist
rising, 86, 87; and thc Enabling
Laws, 967; rJis/~1aiTrts slaughter

of his tfriM-ni^ 11516;
CTift Tii*M'nfln y l6O y

Potempa case, 229
Hof-Stokk, Dr van 't, 121
Hoffman, Professor, 152
Hohmann, Franz, 149
Holverda, Hendrik, 40
Holzhauser, Detective Walter, 94,

95

Hornemann, Wilhelm, 823, 246

Huber, Dr, 200

Hugenbcrg, Dr (Nationalist lea-
der), 106-9, 251

Hvidt, Vald, 120

International Legal Commission*

See London Counter-Trial
jfevesffc, 205

Jackson, Mr Justice Robert H.,
140

acoby, Captain, 82, 84

aegle*, Adolphe, 121

ahnrrkr, Walter, 185

annasch, Dr, 198

ongh, Mr Justice de, 41, 261, 284
Josse, Professor F.mil, 254-7, 264
Jung, Dr Hans, 122

Kampfcr, Oscar, 239-40
Kantorowicz, Alfred, quoted, 117

INDEX

Kapp putsch, 85

Earl Liebknecht House (former

Communist HQ), 23, 61, no,

in, 240-1, 242, 243
Karwahne, Berthold (Nazi dep-
uty), 88, 194, 201, 232-3, 234,

243

Kasper, Wilhdm, f >-\ f >-
Katz, Otto, 122, 124, 126, 131, 132
Keil, Bruno (Mayor of Brock-

witz), 55-6

Kempner (Communist), 240
Kempner, Dr Robert, 141, 143-5
Kiekbusch, Engineer Richard, 48
TTii^gCTg^ Fireman, 29
Kirdbheimer, Frau Dr, 93
Klotz, Hre Officer Waldemar,

29, 155, 265
Koenen, Wilhelm (Communist

deputy), 23, 6r, 82-3, 88, 91-2,

153, 182, 246

Koerner, Under-Secretary, 223
Eoesder, Arthur, 101; quoted,

i02r-3, 117, 118, 131-2
Kohls, Robert, 83, 209
KSnig, Fireman, 29
Korodi, Walther, 69
Kratzcrt, Adol 243
Kroyer, Stefan (Austrian Nazi

official), 88, 234, 243
Krueger (telephone expert), 209
ELuehne, Otto, 149, 153
Kucsncr, Frau Elfriede, 30, 271
Kuglcr, Ferdinand, quoted, 163-4,

207,276-7

Kuhl, Karl, 25, 155, 272
Kunzack, Otto, 63, 240-3
Kuttner, Erich, quoted, 268-9
Kynast, Detective Officer, 216

Lange, Fire-director, 29, 156
LAO (Left Workers' Opposition),

39
Tassmann, Walter, 181

Lateit, Police Lieutenant Emi1 t 22,
26-8, 30, 51-3, 155. 157, 159,
173-4, 209, 259, 273

Lawson, Neil, 121

Lebermann, Gustav, 219-20,
237-9

Leeuwen, Freek van, 126

Lehmann-Russbuldt, Otto, 150

Leibowitz, Samuel S., 121

Leipart, T., 85

Lemmer, Ernst, 201

Lenin, 102

Lepsius, Dr, 167-8, 264

Lersch, Dr (Associate Judge), 205

Levenson, Edward, 121

Levetzow, Police President Ad-
miral von, 32, 84, 88, in

Leydcn Communist Youth
League, 38

Liebknecht, Karl, 229

Liebscher, Councillor (Mayor of
Sdrnewitz), 54

Lindner, Franz, 54, 55

Ldbe, Paul (former Reichstag
President), 75, 161

London Counter-Trial, 103, i2oF.

Losigkeit, Constable, 22, 26, 27,
159,174,209,259

L6we, Herbert, 182-4

Lubbe, Francis Corndis van der

Lubbe, Johan van der (brother of
Marinus), 31

Lubbe, Marinus van der, 88, 134,
135, 138, 145-7, i<5i, 168, 171,
172, 174, 175, 180-1, 216, 233,
235, 242, 249, 254, 270; dis-
covered in the Reichstag, 28;
public misconception of his
diaracter, 31; questioned by
police, 32-4; his ovm statement
on his motives, 34-6, 52-3;
childhood and background, 36-
9; vagrancy, 39-44; journey to

343

Berlin, 44-6; in Neukolln, 45-9,
182-4, 263, 272; fires three
buildings, 47-50; in Hennings-
dorf, 49, 251-2, 262; fires tne
Reichstag, 50-2; similarity 7 with
Hitler, 53; SSrnewitz
regarding him, 54-6;
homosexuality, 56-8; alleged
tool of Communist party, 50-
70; Nazis' anger over him, 71-
2; Helrncr 'recognizes' him at
Bayernhof Restaurant, 94-6,
1923, 210; London Counter-
Trial findings on, 126, 127, 130,
131; the Indictment against,
179-82; Judge Vogt on his
'untrustworthiness', 186-8; in
chains, 189-90, 201 ; his bearing
in court, 206; and his counsel,
207; alleged to be a Nazi, 208;
question of his Communist
membership card, 2245 ; called
by Dimitrov 'the Reichstag
fire Faust', 218-19, 232, 252;
Dimitrov's theory of his ac-
complices, 251-2, 262; experts*
theories on his fire-raising
methods, 254-64, 272^-6; sen-
tenced to death, 268; his sanity,
276-81; his laughter in court,
278-9; breaks silence, 281-2;
reaffirms he did it alone, 282-4;
executed, 284

Luck, Emil, 24

Luxemburg, Rosa, 229

Maass, Fireman "Waldemar, 48
Manchester Guardian, 190, 205;
two articles on Reichstag fire,
104, no, Appendices A & B,
285fF.; Goebbels furious with,
105
Madey, Lord, 117-18

344

INDEX

Martin, Detective-Inspector Dr
Alfred, 146, 147

Marx, Karl, 37

Meene, van der (van der Lubbe's
former teacher), 36, 64

Meissner, Otto (Presidential Sec-
retary), 71, 146

Meusser, Chief Government Sur-
veyor, 156

Meyer, Anna, 203

Meyer-Collings, J., 279

Miersch, Max, 55

Minimax (makers of fire-extin-
guishers), 165-7

Moeller, Kurt, 245-6

Morcnschild, Walter von, 143,

147

Morning Post, 118

Moro-Giafferi, Maitre Vincent
de, 120, 123, 124

Mfihsam, Erich, 150

Mfiller, Oskar, 247

Munich putsch, 53

Munzenberg, Wilti, 75, 99, 101-3,
H3, 133, 231; and the Brown
Book, 116, 117-20; and the
London Counter-Trial, 120,
124, 125, 131; success of his
propaganda, 135

Munzenberg Trust, 102, 121, 123

Mutzka, ChiefEngineerEugen, 26

Nationalists, 104-16 passim
Nazi Putsch, alleged in Ober-
fohren Memorandum, 113-16,

304-9

Neubauer, Dr, 235, 243
Neue Zurcher Ztitung, Die, 172,

201, 237, 258, 270

Neukolln, van der Lubbe in, 45-9,

182-4, 263, 272
Neumann, Heinz, 242
Niemoller, Dr, 198
Norden, Albert, 125

INDEX

Norden, Konny, 143
Notes of Evidence, 70
Nuremberg Tribunal, 198, 224

Oberfohren, Frau Eda, quoted,

108-9
Oberfohren, Dr Ernst, 106-10,

113, 159

Oberfohren Memorandum, 103,
125, 133, 135, 152 (reproduced
in full in Appendix C, 293fF.) ;
misleads the Manchester Guard-
ion, 104-6; its authorship, 106-
10; its inaccuracies, 110-13; its
story of the Nazi Putsch, 1 1 3-16
Oehme, Walter, 93, 210, 243-4
Olbricht (Communist leader), 93
Organistka, Leon, 247
Ossietzky, Carl von, 150
Otto, Willi, 23

Panknin, Ernst, 1824

Papen, Fritz von, 68, 82, 83, 88,

152, 172, 228, 251
Parrisius, Dr (Assistant Public

Prosecutor), 49, 170, 203, 219,

220, 284

Peare, Catherine Owens, 119

Peldonann, Horst (Dr Sack's
junior), 241

Pestalozza, Count, 200

PIC (Party of International Com-
munists), 39

Pieck, Wilhelm (Communist
deputy), 46, 93, 153, 202

Pitzsche, Dr, 165

Poeschel, Constable Helmut, 25,
27, 28, 51, 68-9, 157, 174; ex-
change with Dr Bunger, 208-9

Poland, and the Westerplatte, 100

Popov, Simon, 94, 95, 123, 1^7,

221, 235, 239, 252, 270, 271;
not allowed to confront van
der Lubbe, 193 ; and the witness

Kampfer, 239-40; final speech,

253; acquitted, 268
Potempa case, 229
Pravda, 128-9
Press, the, and Nazi atrocities,

IOO-I

Pretzsch, Frau Helcnc, 245
Priesnitz, Engineer, 265
Pritt, D. N., 120, 121
Prodohl, Eduard, 26
Puhle, Chief Fire Officer Kmil,

29, 155-8
Puppe, Dr, 200
Pusdbke, Frau, 84

Raben, Detective-Sergeant, 180
Radbruch, Gustav, quoted, 73-4
Rode or PIC (International Com-

munists, 38, 41
Rathcnau, Walter, 229
Rauschning, Hermann (Voice of

Destruction, quoted, 138-40
Reaney, JML J., 266
RedBook(Roodboek),4i-3 ; qu oted,

56-8,67
Reed, Douglas, 84, 159, 169, 231,

261; The Burning of the Reichstag,

quoted, 75, 78, 158, 201, 205,

206, 211-12, 260, 262, 284
Reese, Maria (Reichstag deputy),

117

Regler, Gustav, 75, 76
Rehme, Anna (Torgler's secretary)

23, 92, 244, 245
Reichstag, the history of the

Rerm, Ludwig, 150

Ricss, Curt, 167

Risse, Heinrich, 78

Ritter, Dr, 257, 263

R6hm, Ernst, 57, 118, 126, 136,

137

Rohr-Demmin, Joachim von, 198
Ropp, Baron von der, 181

345

Rosenfeld, Dr Kurt, 93, 126, 200
RSssler, Frau Irmgard, 93-4, 246
Rumbold, Sir Horace, 84
Rusch, Judge (Associate Judge),
TO, 205

Sack, Dr Alfons (Torgler's coun-
sel), 59, 89, 122* 123, I5<5, i?o,
191, 261; on the Oberfbhren
Memorandum, 107-11; on the
Communist Party's pamphlet,
109; on Moro-Giafieri, 124;
on alleged Nazi complicity,
134-5; Conscientous and able,
128 ; offended with A. G. Hays,
129; Hays' tribute to, 130, 207;
and Willi Hintze's evidence,
185-6; on Vogt's refusal to
allow confrontation, 194; ob-
jects to Vogt bluffing witnesses,
194-5; and Torglers appoint-
ments, 195; stricture on Vogt,
197; his integrity, and relations
with Torgler, 199-202; ability
in court, 204; and Dimitrov,
231; contempt for Karwahne,
233; and die witness Oehme,
244; on 'classical -witnesses',
246, 247; and the fire experts,
258, 260, 264

Sander (associate of Ernst), 143
Schaeske, Otto, 25
Schatz, Dr Wilhdbn (fire expert),
186, 251, 255-62, 263-4, 272-6
SchcictrT" asm } Philipp, 119
Schlegelberger, Under-Secretary,

179

Schleicher, General, 228, 251
Schmal, Richard, 50, 273
SdbmicC Under-Secretary, 168
Schmidt (Minister of Trade), 223
Schneider, Dr, 21, 32, 89, 148;

quoted, 86-7
Scholz, Rudolf 23

34<5

INDEX

Schdnfeldcr ('retired gentleman'),

48
Schulz, Fireman Hermann, 48,

131-2
ScHi" 1 rn aT| n (Communist deputy),

63
Schwcrin von Krosigk, Count,

74,i4<5
Scranowitz, House-Inspector

Alexander, 26-8, 51, 52, 92,

169-75, 214-15, 259, 271
Seling, Elarl, 24
Seufiert, Dr (van der Lubbe's

counsel), 41, 122, 207, 261, 284
Severing, Police President, 148,

160

Shaw, G. B., 124
Sjardijn (van der Lubbe's brother

in-kw), 38
Sjardijn, Annie (van der Lubbe's

stepsister), 36

Social Democrats, 228, 269
Soederman, Professor Karl, 130;

quoted, 280
Sommerfeldt, Martin (Gdring's

press chief), 82, 83; quoted,

89-91, 111-13, 135-7
Sommer, Oskar, 54-6
Sdrnewitz legend, regarding van

der Lubbe, 54-6, 278-9
Soudan (advocate), 121
Spietz, Detective Karl, 93
Stampfer, Friedrich, 22
Stein, Adol quoted, 238
Stephan, Werner, 135

Tamm, Pire-Dkector, 29, 156
Tanev, Vassili, 94-6, 123, 127,
221, 235-6, 239, 240, 252, 277;
in r-Karng^ and attempts suicide,
not allowed to confront van
der Lubbe, 193 ; his bearing in
court, 206; final speech, 253;
acquitted, 268

INDEX

Toss, 205

Taube, Dr, 149

Taubert, Dr, 182

Teichert, Dr (counsel for the
Bulgarians), 122, 129, 196, 208,
218, 256; on Helmet's testi-
mony, 192, 193

Temps, Le 9 quoted, 230-1

Thaler, Werner, 24, 155, 158, 272

Thalmann (Communist), 240

Tteel (chauffeur), 203

Todorov, Stefan Dimitrov, 196

Torgler, Ernst, 122, 125, 127, 150,
179, 181, 182, 185, 186, 189,
204, 209, 210, 224, 233-5, 243,
252, 258, 277; his movements
on night of the fire, 23, 82,
92-3 ; whispers and accusations
against, 61, 88-9, 91-2; reports
to the police, 93 ; and the Brown
Book, 119; abortive attempt to
arrest him, 148-9; in chains,
190; not allowed to confront
Karwahne, 194; question of his
appointments, 195 ; relations
with his counsel, 199-203; his
bearing in court, 206; and
Wcberstedt, 236; alleged meet-
ing with Lebcrmann, 237-9;

r

242; and Oehme's testimony,
243-4; and the witness Birken-
hauer, 244-5 ; final speech, 253 ;
and Dr Schatz, 260, 261;
acquitted, 268
Torgler, Frau, 200
Torres, Maitrc Henri, 121
Trotsky, 102

Urbain, Professor George, 256,
261

Van der Lubbe. See Lubbe

Vermeylen, Maitre Pierre, 120,

126

Vienna Stock Exchange, 265
Villard, Maitre MarceX 121, 129
Vink,Izak, 57
Vink, Jacob (Koos) von, 40, 42,

44-6,64-6

Vogt, Judge Paul

magistrate), 43, 56, 64, 67, 77,
200, 201, 203,204,213,235, 242,
244, 245, 277; his background,
179; frames *Kc Indictment,
180-2; and the Neukslln link',
182-4; and WilliHintze, 185-6;
on van der Lubbe's 'untrust-
worthiness*, 186-9; his hatred

of CVvryimi-miCTn^ 1889; Orders

accused to be put in chains,
189-92; exchanges with Dimi-
trov, 189-92, 196-7; and Hel-
mer's evidence, 192-3; refuses
Bulgarians' request to confront
van der Lubbe, 192-3; bluffs
the witnesses, 194-5; hi com-
muniques, 195-6; and Dimi-
trov's alleged bombing of Sofia
cathedral, 196-7, 236 ; Dr Sack's
stricture on, 197 ; his subsequent
career, 198-9; and Dimitrov's
alibi, 212; and the witness
Grothe, 240-1; andDr Schatz,
258; and the fire experts, 254,
263

VoUdscher Beobachter, 119, 153;
quoted, 113, 160, 220-1

VorwSrts, quoted, 85

Vossuhe Zeitong, quoted 160-1

W.S/, Herr ("friend of Dr Befl*),

57, 126
Wagner, Fire-Director, 254,

264 256-7,

Wagner, Frau Hedwig, 44
Wagner, Karl, 189

347

Wald, Fire Officer Franz, 29, 155,
156

Wallot, JPaul (architect of Reich-
stag), 73, 75

Weber, Walter (GSring's body-
guard), 84

Weberstedt,Major Hans (National
Socialist Press Officer), 232,
235-6

Weimar Republic, 21, 53, 73, 74,
208,230

Wdls, H. G., 124

Wels (Social Democrat), 115

Wendt, Albert (Reichstag night-
porter), 23, 25-6, 82, 157, 169,
171, 271

Wemecke, Dr (assistant to Judge
Vogt), 56, 180, 198, 199

Werner, Dr Karl (Public Pro-
secutor), 130, 203, 209, 221,
229, 284; his address to the
court, 210; calls for Gdring and
Goebbels as witnesses, 22; and
the witness Lebermann, 238-9;
and the witness Grothe, 241

Wcrsig, Dr Kurt, 122

Westerplatte, occupied by Poland,
100

Wcyers, Detective-Inspector N.
G.,33

White Book on the Shootings of June

INDEX

$otb i 9)4* 143 ; extracts from,

Appendix D, 3i3fE
Wilhelm H, Kaiser, 160
Wilkinson, Ellen, 103
Wille, Dr Werner (Dimitrov's

counsel), 190, 191
Wingurth (locksmith), 77
WockSck (Reichstag servant), 271
Wolff, Dr, 106, 154, 172; quoted,

135, 171-2
Wollenberg, Erich, quoted, 118,

143
World Committee for the Victims

of German Fascism, 102, 120
Wudtke, Otto, 246

Young Communist League,
Dutch (De Zaaier, The Sowers),

37-9

Young Communist League, Ger-
man, 102

Zachow, Paul, 182-4

Zinoviev, 102

Zirpins, Detective-Inspector
Walter, 70, 147, i<58, 182, 275;
on van der Lubbe's memory and
accuracy, 33-4; his final report
of Reichstag fire, 59-64

Zutt, Professor Jurg, 277, 279;
quoted, 280, 281

348